Introducing Chef Hygiene: The Food Safety and HACCP Records App Built by a Restaurant Owner, for Every Kitchen

Chef Hygiene is a digital food safety and HACCP records app for restaurants, takeaways and food businesses. It replaces the paper diary with simple daily checks on a phone, tablet or computer: fridge and freezer temperatures, cooking and cooling logs, cleaning schedules, allergen charts, delivery checks, staff training, fire safety and more. Every record is signed with a name and a time, kept safe in the cloud, and ready to show a food safety inspector in one tap. It works in 50 countries and 36 languages, follows the food safety rules of each country, and costs £2.99 a month per site with a 14-day free trial.

That is the short answer. This is the long one: the story of why Chef Hygiene exists, what it does, what it costs and why, and where it is going next.

Contents

1. A story from behind the pass
2. The paper problem nobody talks about
3. What Chef Hygiene is, in one minute
4. A day in a kitchen with Chef Hygiene
5. Every feature, explained
6. Peace of mind for owners: see what really happens
7. The price: £2.99, and why we keep it low
8. Your records are yours, always
9. One app for 50 countries and 36 languages
10. More than an app: the Chef Hygiene network
11. What is coming next
12. How to start in ten minutes
13. A short guide to kitchen food safety
14. Frequently asked questions
15. A final word from the kitchen

1. A story from behind the pass

Chef Hygiene was not born in an office. It was born in a kitchen.

The person who started it spent 21 years working in the food industry, most of them running a restaurant of their own. They know the smell of a kitchen at six in the morning before the first delivery arrives, the noise of a Friday night when every burner is lit and every ticket is late, and the quiet worry at the end of the night when the last customer has gone and one question is still left: did we do everything we were supposed to do today?

For years, that restaurant held a five-star food hygiene rating. Not once, not by luck, but year after year. It was the achievement its owner was most proud of. A five-star rating is not a sticker on a window. It is the result of thousands of small things done right, every single day: the fridge checked at opening, the chicken probed before it went out, the chopping boards changed between raw and cooked, the allergen question answered properly, the cleaning done and signed, the delivery van checked before the boxes came in.

And almost all of that work was written on paper.

Anyone who has run a kitchen knows the paper diary. It lives on a clipboard by the fridge or in a folder in the office. It gets splashed with sauce. Pages curl in the steam. Somebody borrows the pen. A new member of staff fills in the wrong column. A busy Saturday means three temperature checks are written at the end of the shift from memory, because there was no time to write them when they happened. And then, on the morning the food safety inspector walks in, the owner opens the folder and hopes.

The idea behind Chef Hygiene is simple. After two decades of doing it the hard way, the person who built it wanted to make the right way the easy way. Not for one restaurant, but for every kitchen that wants to keep its customers safe and its rating high, wherever it is in the world.

Chef Hygiene is built from real experience. Every check in the app is a check a real kitchen does. Every screen was designed with one question in mind: could a tired chef at the end of a twelve-hour shift do this in ten seconds? If the answer was no, the screen was made simpler.

This is not a passion project in the sense of a hobby. It is a passion project in the sense that it comes from someone who loves food, loves the people who cook it, and has seen too many good businesses lose a good rating because of paperwork rather than cooking.

2. The paper problem nobody talks about

Food safety law in most countries asks food businesses to do three things: control the risks, check that the controls are working, and keep a record that proves it. In the UK, the paper system that most small businesses use is called Safer Food, Better Business (SFBB). In Europe and North America, the same idea runs through every food safety system under the name HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points). The names change from country to country; the principle does not.

The cooking is usually the easy part. Good chefs cook safely by instinct. The hard part is the records, and the records are where many businesses lose points at inspection.

Think about what an inspector actually scores. In the UK, for example, a food hygiene rating is made from three areas: how hygienically food is handled, the condition of the building, and confidence in management, which includes how well the business keeps its food safety records. A kitchen can be spotless and still drop from a 5 to a 4, or lower, because the diary has gaps, the cooling records are missing, or nobody can find last month's sheets. Our own count of official open data in September 2026 found more than 25,000 food businesses in England, Wales and Northern Ireland rated 4 rather than 5 where management and records scores played a part, and almost four in ten takeaways rated below 5. Asking for a re-rating visit can cost a business £190 to £350 in fees, depending on the council, on top of the months of waiting.

Here are the problems paper creates, every day, in kitchens everywhere:

Paper gets lost. A folder is moved during a deep clean. A page is torn out. A diary is thrown away by mistake with the old menus. Water from a burst pipe ruins a box of records. When the paper is gone, the proof is gone, and the business cannot show months of good work.

Paper is filled in late. On a busy day, records are written up at the end of the shift, or the end of the week, or the night before an inspection. Everyone in the industry knows it happens. Inspectors know it happens too, which is why a perfectly neat diary written in one colour of pen can raise more questions than it answers.

Paper cannot tell the owner anything. The owner is not in the kitchen every hour. They might be at the bank, at the cash and carry, at a second site, or at home with their family. With paper, the only way to know if the opening checks were done is to ask someone, and the only answer is a word: "Yes, boss, all done." The owner has to trust the word. Usually the word is true. Sometimes it is not.

Paper speaks one language. Kitchens are some of the most international workplaces on earth. A single team might include people whose first languages are Polish, Romanian, Urdu, Bengali, Arabic, Portuguese and Turkish. A paper diary in English asks each of them to write in a language that may not be their strongest, so notes become short, unclear, or missing altogether.

Paper does not remind anyone. A fridge that has been warm for three days, a fire extinguisher whose service date has passed, a staff member whose food hygiene certificate has expired, an extraction duct that is overdue for cleaning: paper does not shout. It waits silently until the inspector reads it.

Paper makes inspection day frightening. The inspector asks for the last three months of cooling records, the allergen information for a dish, the training records for the new chef, and the pest control reports. The owner goes looking through folders while the inspector waits.

None of these problems is about cooking. All of them are about records. And all of them can be solved.

3. What Chef Hygiene is, in one minute

Chef Hygiene is an all-in-one food safety, HACCP and kitchen compliance app. It gives a restaurant, takeaway or food business everything it needs to run its daily food safety checks and keep its records, on any phone, tablet or computer.

In one minute, here is what it does:

• Daily checks made simple. Opening and closing checklists, fridge and freezer temperature logs, cooking, reheating, hot holding, cooling and display checks, all with big buttons and a number pad, or by voice.
• Cleaning, allergens, deliveries and more. Cleaning schedules with sign-off, chemical safety sheets, a 14-allergen chart for every dish, goods-in checks, approved suppliers and batch tracking.
• Your whole team, without passwords. Staff join with a 6-digit code or a QR code. They use one shared kitchen tablet with a personal PIN, or their own phone. Every check is signed with their name.
• Owners see everything as it happens. Notifications tell the owner when the opening checks are done, when a check fails, when the opening checks are late, and when the day is signed off.
• Ready for inspection, every day. A clear view of what the inspector will look for, a free practice walk-round inspection, an AI inspector that looks at photos of your kitchen, and a complete records pack you can download as a PDF or share with a secure link and QR code.
• Fire safety and emergencies. Fire checks, drills and certificates, plus photos and locations of the gas valve, water stopcock and fuse box, so anyone on the team knows where to turn things off in an emergency.
• Local rules, local language. The rules, temperatures and wording of 50 countries, and an app that speaks 36 languages. Staff can write in their own language while the owner and the inspector see an English copy.
• Nothing is ever lost. Records are stored safely in the cloud, are never changed or deleted after they are saved, and can always be downloaded.

And it costs £2.99 a month per site, with unlimited staff, no contract and a 14-day free trial. No card is needed to start.

4. A day in a kitchen with Chef Hygiene

The best way to understand Chef Hygiene is to walk through a normal day. Let us follow a small restaurant from the moment the door opens to the moment the lights go off.

7:45 am — The kitchen opens

The first chef arrives, switches on the lights and picks up the kitchen tablet from its stand on the wall. The screen shows the names of the team. She taps her name and types her four-digit PIN. No email, no password, no forgotten login.

The home screen shows today's checks, with the most urgent at the top. First on the list is the opening checklist. It asks the questions every good kitchen asks every morning: Are the fridges and freezers working? Is there any sign of pests? Is the handwash basin stocked with soap and paper towels? Is the sanitiser made up at the right strength? Is the allergen information ready for the day? She taps Yes for each one. If she taps No, the app asks her to write what she did to fix it, because a problem written down with its fix is a sign of a well-run kitchen, not a bad one.

Next come the fridge and freezer checks. She taps Fridge 1, types 3.5 on the big number pad, and taps Save. If her hands are full, she can tap the microphone and simply say "three point five". The app knows the legal limits for her country, so if a fridge reads too warm, it turns red at once and asks what action was taken. The whole check takes less time than finding a pen.

At 8:01, the owner, who is still at home having breakfast with the children, gets a notification on their phone: the opening checks are done, with no problems. They do not need to call anyone. They do not need to ask. They can see it.

9:30 am — The delivery arrives

A van pulls up with meat, dairy and vegetables. The kitchen porter opens the goods-in check on the tablet. He checks the packaging is clean and undamaged and the use-by dates are fine, then probes the chilled delivery. He types the temperature and the invoice number and taps Accept. If the chicken had arrived too warm, he would have tapped Reject, and the record would show exactly why, protecting the restaurant if there is ever a dispute with the supplier. The supplier is already on the restaurant's approved supplier list, and the batch can be traced if there is ever a product recall.

11:00 am — Preparing for service

The sous-chef cooks a large batch of curry for the day. When it is ready, he probes it, types 82, and the app records the core temperature, the time and his name. Part of the curry will be kept for later, so he starts a cooling log. The app runs a timer and reminds him to check that it is cooling fast enough, following the safe cooling times used in his country.

A new member of staff, who joined last week, is not sure which dishes contain celery. She opens the allergen chart on the tablet. Every dish on the menu is listed with all 14 major allergens, showing what each dish contains and what it may contain. When a customer asks at lunch, she can answer with confidence, not with a guess.

1:00 pm — Lunch service

During service, the tablet stays quiet. Chef Hygiene does not get in the way of cooking. The hot food on the pass is in hot holding, and the app has a timer for that too. Salads on the counter are covered by the cold display check.

3:00 pm — Cleaning between services

The afternoon is for cleaning. Each person sees their own jobs first. The owner decided who looks after what: one person does the temperatures, another the cleaning, another the deliveries. They can still help with everything else, but their own list is at the top, so nothing falls between two people. As each cleaning task is done, it is ticked off. A photo can be added as proof: the clean extraction canopy, the scrubbed floor drain, the emptied and sanitised fridge.

The owner does not get a separate notification for every tick. Chef Hygiene waits until the tablet has been quiet for a minute, then sends one simple message: "Ola finished 12 cleaning tasks."

6:30 pm — Something goes wrong

At the evening check, Fridge 2 reads 9°C. That is too warm. The chef types it in, and the screen turns red. The app asks what she is doing about it. She moves the food to Fridge 1 and writes it down. Because a failed check is important, the owner gets a notification at once, wherever they are: Fridge 2 has failed its check.

On the same screen, the app offers a button to call the fridge engineer. The owner saved the engineer's number weeks ago in the emergency contacts. One tap, and the call is made. And if the same fridge fails three times, the app warns the owner that it is a repeat problem that needs a proper repair, not just another note.

11:00 pm — Closing time

The last chef runs the closing checklist: food covered and labelled, fridges at the right temperature, waste out, surfaces sanitised. Then the manager reviews the day and taps Sign off. The owner gets one last message: the day is signed off.

Every check made today is now saved, signed, timed and stored safely. Nobody has to write it up at the end of the week. Nobody has to remember. If an inspector walks in tomorrow morning, the records are already complete.

That is what Chef Hygiene does. It takes hours of daily paperwork and turns them into a few seconds at a time, done at the moment the work is done, by the person who did it.

5. Every feature, explained

Chef Hygiene is a big app made to feel small. Here is every part of it, in detail. Features that are live today are described as they work now. Features still being built are clearly marked as coming soon in chapter 11.

5.1 Opening and closing checks

The opening and closing checklists are the backbone of a safe day. Chef Hygiene's checklists cover the questions inspectors expect a well-run kitchen to ask itself: equipment working, temperatures right, no signs of pests, handwashing facilities ready, sanitiser at the right strength, allergen information up to date, food covered, labelled and stored correctly, waste removed, and surfaces cleaned.

Each answer is a tap. If a staff member answers No, the app asks what was done to put it right. If the business uses sanitiser test strips, the strength can be recorded too. The checklists follow the safe methods used in each country, so a kitchen in Paris sees the checks that matter in France, and a kitchen in Manchester sees the ones that matter in England.

5.2 Temperature logs: fridges, freezers, cooking, cooling, reheating, holding and display

Temperature control is the heart of food safety, and it is where paper diaries most often fail. Chef Hygiene covers every kind of temperature record a kitchen needs:

• Fridge and freezer checks, at least twice a day, against the legal limits for the business's country or nation.
• Cooking core temperatures, with the food, the time and the name of the person.
• Reheating temperatures.
• Hot holding, with timers for the time limits used in many countries.
• Cold display, with timers for food on display.
• Cooling logs, with timers that remind the team to check that food is cooling quickly enough.
• Delivery temperatures, as part of the goods-in check.
• Probe thermometer checks, once a month, in iced water and boiling water, so the business can prove its thermometer reads accurately.

Every temperature is typed on a large number pad, designed for wet or gloved hands, or spoken with the voice button. There is no slow scroll wheel, no tiny keyboard, and no handwriting. A reading outside the safe range turns red, asks for an action, and tells the owner at once.

5.3 Fixing problems, and catching repeat problems

A record that shows a problem and its fix is worth more than a record that shows nothing at all. Chef Hygiene asks for an action whenever something is wrong, and a failed check must be dealt with before the day can be closed. If the same problem keeps coming back, such as the same fridge failing three or more times, the app flags it as a repeat problem, so the owner can deal with the cause rather than the symptom.

5.4 Manager sign-off and regular reviews

At the end of each day, a manager reviews the checks and signs off the day. Most food safety systems also ask for regular reviews. Every four weeks, every quarter and every year, the business should look back and ask whether anything has changed, whether new dishes or suppliers need new controls, and whether any problems keep returning. Chef Hygiene reminds managers when each review is due and keeps the record of it.

5.5 Cleaning schedules, chemicals, extraction, pests, glass and equipment

Food safety is not only about temperatures. Chef Hygiene keeps all the other records a kitchen needs:

• Cleaning schedules: daily, weekly and monthly cleaning tasks, each signed off by the person who did it, with optional photos.
• Your own checklists: the owner can add extra checks that matter to their own kitchen.
• Chemicals (COSHH): a register of cleaning chemicals with photos of their safety data sheets, so the team knows how to use them safely.
• Extraction and duct cleaning: a schedule for the kitchen canopy and ducts, where a build-up of grease is a well-known cause of kitchen fires.
• Pest control: sightings and contractor visits, with reports kept in one place.
• Glass and hard plastics: a register of glass and brittle plastic items, so breakages can be checked and recorded.
• Equipment: a register of the kitchen's equipment, with services, faults and repairs.

5.6 Allergens: all 14, dish by dish

Allergens are one of the most serious responsibilities a food business has. A mistake can make a customer seriously ill. Chef Hygiene keeps an allergen chart for every dish on the menu, covering the 14 major allergens recognised in the UK and the European Union: celery, cereals containing gluten, crustaceans, eggs, fish, lupin, milk, molluscs, mustard, tree nuts, peanuts, sesame, soya, and sulphur dioxide and sulphites. For each dish, the chart shows what it contains and what it may contain.

The chart can be read on the kitchen tablet during service, so front-of-house staff and chefs can answer customers accurately. A restaurant that chooses to have a public page for diners can also show its allergen chart there.

5.7 Deliveries, suppliers and batch tracking

Safe food starts before it enters the kitchen. Chef Hygiene's goods-in check records the condition of the packaging, the use-by dates, the temperature of chilled and frozen goods and the invoice number, then lets the team accept or reject the delivery. The approved supplier list keeps track of who the business buys from, and batch tracking means that if a supplier ever recalls a product, the business can see quickly whether it was used and when.

5.8 Your team: shared tablets, staff phones, PINs and personal jobs

The biggest reason digital food safety systems fail is that staff find them too hard to use. Chef Hygiene was designed so that staff never need an email address or a password.

There are two ways for staff to use the app:

• One shared kitchen tablet. The owner pairs a tablet with a 6-digit code or a QR code. After that, each person taps their own name and types their 4-digit PIN. Every check they make carries their name.
• Their own phone. The owner makes a one-time code or QR code for a staff member. They scan it on their own phone, and from then on, that phone works only as that person.

The owner and managers can remove a tablet or a phone at any time, for example when someone leaves. Managers can be given extra powers, such as signing off the day, and a manager can be put in charge of one site or several.

Owners can also give each person their own jobs: temperatures for one person, cleaning for another, deliveries for a third. Everyone sees their own jobs first, while still being able to help with anything else. This simple idea removes one of the oldest excuses in any kitchen: "I thought someone else was doing it."

5.9 Training records and staff illness

Inspectors ask to see that food handlers are trained. Chef Hygiene keeps training records and certificates for every staff member, with renewal dates and a training matrix that shows at a glance who is trained in what, and whose certificate is about to expire.

The app also keeps illness and return-to-work records. Food handlers with vomiting or diarrhoea should stay away from work until they have been free of symptoms for 48 hours, and businesses should keep a record of it. These sensitive health records are visible only to owners and managers.

5.10 Notifications: the owner always knows

Notifications are explained in full in chapter 6, because they change how an owner runs a business. In short: the owner, the managers and the kitchen tablets are told when the opening or closing checks are done, when the day is signed off, the moment any check fails, when the opening checks are running late, and when routine tasks are finished. Each person can choose to hear about every task or only the important ones.

5.11 Ready for inspection

The Ready for inspection screen shows the business exactly what an inspector will look for and what is still missing, in plain words. For UK businesses, the app also shows the business's official food hygiene rating and scores from the public data, and a path to 5 that explains what to improve. In countries with their own public schemes, such as smiley ratings, the app explains how that country's system works.

Chef Hygiene also helps new businesses and new managers build their food safety plan from the safe methods, keeps a log of complaints and accidents, and includes a first-week guide and links to official guidance videos for managers who are new to the job.

5.12 The free practice walk-round inspection

Most owners only find out what an inspector thinks on the day of the inspection. Chef Hygiene lets them find out first.

The practice inspection is a free walk-round that takes about ten minutes. The owner or manager walks through the kitchen and answers simple yes-or-no questions across twelve areas, from handwashing and cross-contamination to structure, cleaning and records, just like an inspector would ask. At the end, the app shows the likely scores and a clear list of things to fix, in order of importance.

Run it before a real inspection, after a busy season, or every month as a habit. Fixing a problem the week before an inspection costs nothing. Losing a star because of it can cost a business for years.

5.13 The AI inspector

For businesses that want to go further, the AI inspector works like a mock inspection with a very observant visitor. The app asks the owner to take photos of 15 places in the kitchen, from the handwash basin and the fridges to the floors, the storage and the bins, and asks the chef 10 questions, the kind an inspector really asks. Then the AI writes a report with what looks good, what needs attention and what to fix first.

An AI inspection costs £0.99 each time, with no subscription, and every business gets its first AI inspection free. It is bought in the iOS, Android or Windows app and can then be used on the web too. It takes about twenty minutes. The report is an estimate to help the business improve, not an official rating, and the app says so clearly. Photos and answers are checked by Anthropic's AI, Claude. They are not used to train AI models and are deleted within 30 days.

5.14 The inspector pack: every record in one tap

When the inspector arrives, the owner does not need to search through folders. Chef Hygiene creates an inspector pack: every record for the chosen period, laid out clearly in the style inspectors already know, in English, with photos. It can cover the last four weeks, the last three months, the time since the last inspection, or any dates the owner chooses, up to two years at a time. It can be saved as a PDF or printed.

There are two more ways to share records:

• A secure link and QR code. The owner can create a read-only link for the inspector that lasts one, three or seven days. The inspector scans the QR code and sees the records on their own device, with no account needed. The owner can stop the link at any time and can see how many times it has been opened.
• Spreadsheet export. Records and lists, such as training, allergens and suppliers, can be downloaded as a spreadsheet (CSV).

If a business wants to ask for a re-rating after making improvements, the pack helps it gather the evidence.

5.15 Records that can never be changed

Trust is everything in food safety records. In Chef Hygiene, a record is never changed or deleted after it is saved. If something was entered wrongly, the correction is saved as a new record, and both remain visible. The database itself enforces this rule. This is exactly what an inspector wants to see: an honest, complete history, not a diary that could have been rewritten the night before.

5.16 Works without internet

Kitchens have thick walls, metal fridges and basements, and Wi-Fi does not always reach. Chef Hygiene works offline. The kitchen tablet and the app keep a safe local copy of the day's work and send the checks automatically when the connection returns. The emergency information works offline too.

5.17 Voice: talk to write

For busy hands, Chef Hygiene has talk to write. Staff can tap the microphone and say a temperature, or speak a note in their own language, instead of typing. It uses the speech recognition built into the phone, tablet or browser.

5.18 Photos as proof

Any record can have a photo: a clean surface, a delivery label, a repaired door seal, a pest control report. Photos are made small automatically before upload, so they do not fill the phone or the account.

5.19 The built-in paper scanner

Many businesses have years of paper records, certificates and reports. Chef Hygiene has a built-in scanner that turns a photo of a paper page into a clean, straight, readable scan, made small for storage. Old diaries, training certificates, pest control reports and gas safety certificates can all be brought into the app and kept with everything else.

5.20 Several sites, one account

Owners with more than one restaurant or takeaway can run up to five sites in one account today. Each site has its own staff, fridges, checks, rating and subscription. The owner can switch between sites, see all sites together, and put managers in charge of the sites they run.

5.21 Fire safety

A kitchen is one of the highest fire-risk workplaces there is: open flames, hot oil, gas, electrics and grease, all in one small room. Food safety and fire safety go together, and Chef Hygiene keeps both.

The fire safety section includes:

• A building profile and a fire risk assessment with an action plan. In England and Wales the law requires the fire risk assessment to be written down for most businesses; the app guides the owner through it and gives the right guidance for Scotland and Northern Ireland and for other countries.
• A fire logbook.
• Daily, weekly and monthly fire checks: fire exits and escape routes clear, fire doors closing properly, the fire alarm panel normal, gas appliances checked, carbon monoxide alarms working, the weekly fire alarm test (rotating the call point used each week), emergency lighting, fire extinguishers and kitchen fire suppression systems.
• Fire drills and fire training records, and the fire action notice.
• Sections for shared buildings and for businesses with residents living above or next to them.
• Certificates with expiry dates: gas safety, fire alarm, emergency lighting, extinguishers, kitchen suppression, fire doors, electrical installation (EICR) and portable appliance testing (PAT). Chef Hygiene reminds the owner before each one expires.
• A gas safety record: the yearly gas safety check by a registered engineer, the gas interlock, and a link to check an engineer's registration.

5.22 Where to turn things off: the gas valve, water, electrics and alarm

Here is a question every kitchen should be able to answer in seconds: if there is a gas leak right now, who knows where to turn the gas off?

In many kitchens, only the owner knows. And the owner is not always there.

Chef Hygiene has a simple, powerful feature called Where to turn things off. The owner writes down the location, and can add a photo, of:

• the gas emergency shut-off valve,
• the water stopcock,
• the fuse box or main electrical switch,
• the fire alarm panel.

Every member of staff can see this information on the kitchen tablet, even without internet. In an emergency, a new kitchen porter on their first week can find the gas valve from a photo in seconds, instead of searching while the smell of gas fills the room. This one feature can save a building, and it can save lives.

5.23 Emergency help and who to call

The Emergency button gives clear, step-by-step actions for the situations every kitchen fears: fire, a smell of gas, a carbon monoxide alarm, a water leak, an electrical problem or power cut, a broken fridge or freezer, and an injury. It shows the national emergency numbers for the business's country. It works offline.

The owner can also keep a private list of who to call for each problem: the gas engineer, the plumber, the electrician, the fridge engineer and the pest control company. When a fridge check fails, the app offers a button to call that fridge's engineer straight away.

5.24 Local engineers near you

Chef Hygiene also connects restaurants with local engineers. Under Who to call, a business can see local gas engineers, electricians, plumbers, refrigeration and air-conditioning engineers, extraction and duct cleaners and pest control companies who have joined the Chef Hygiene network, with Call buttons and an Open now label when they are available. The full story of the engineer network is in chapter 10.

5.25 Your country's rules

Food safety law is different in every country, and sometimes in every region. Fridge limits, cooking temperatures, cooling times, staff health rules, allergen laws, fire safety rules, inspection schemes and emergency numbers all change across borders.

Chef Hygiene includes a rules pack for each of the 50 countries it supports. A business picks its country, or its US state or Canadian province, when it signs up, and the app sets the right temperatures, checks, wording and guidance. The app is careful to show the difference between what is law and what is official guidance or good practice, so owners know where they stand. Country texts are prepared from official sources, and businesses should always follow their local authority's advice when it differs.

5.26 Your language, with an English copy

Chef Hygiene speaks 36 languages: English, Arabic, Bengali, Bulgarian, Catalan, Chinese, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Icelandic, Italian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Macedonian, Norwegian, Pashto, Polish, Portuguese, Punjabi, Romanian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovenian, Albanian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish, Ukrainian and Urdu.

The owner chooses the language of their screens. Each staff member can use their own language too. When a staff member writes a note in their own language, Chef Hygiene keeps the original and shows an English copy, so the owner and the inspector can always read it. Our research in 2026 did not find another food safety app that does this.

5.27 Help when you need it

Every screen is designed to be clear without a manual, but help is always close:

• The help chat answers "how do I…?" questions about the app, and general questions about food safety rules in the user's country, in the user's own language, any time of day. It is powered by AI, it says clearly that it can make mistakes and that it is not legal advice, and messages are not kept.
• The setup guide, in the app and on the website, shows in pictures how to create an account, pair a kitchen tablet and put the app on a staff phone, and how to do the everyday jobs.

5.28 Every device

Chef Hygiene works on Android phones and tablets, Windows computers, and any web browser at app.chefhygiene.com, and it is coming to iOS (iPhone, iPad and Apple silicon Macs) through the App Store. Large screens get a layout made for them, with a side menu, so a manager in the office can work comfortably on a computer while the team uses a tablet in the kitchen. Everything stays in sync.

6. Peace of mind for owners: see what really happens

Ask any restaurant owner what keeps them awake at night, and food safety will be near the top of the list. Not because they do not care, but because they cannot be everywhere at once.

The problem of "Yes, boss"

For as long as there have been restaurants, owners have relied on a simple conversation:

"Did you do the opening checks?"

"Yes, boss."

"Fridge temperatures?"

"All fine."

"Did you do the cleaning?"

"Done."

Most of the time, the answer is true. Good staff are honest and hard-working. But sometimes a busy morning means the checks are rushed, skipped, or done tomorrow. Sometimes a new member of staff does not know what to check. Sometimes a fridge has been creeping up for three days, and nobody noticed because nobody wrote it down. And the owner only finds out when something goes wrong: a complaint, a sick customer, or a lower rating.

Owners should not have to rely only on words. They should be able to see.

What Chef Hygiene tells the owner

Chef Hygiene sends notifications to the owner, the managers and the kitchen tablets, so the right people know what is happening without asking:

• Opening checks done, with the number of problems found.
• Closing checks done, with the number of problems found.
• The day signed off by a manager.
• Any failed check, the moment it happens: a fridge or freezer too warm, food not cooked or reheated hot enough, hot holding or display out of range, cooling too slow, a delivery rejected, a thermometer reading wrongly, broken glass, pests seen, or equipment reported broken.
• Opening checks running late: if the opening checks are not done 30 minutes after the opening time the owner has set, the owner and managers are told.
• Every other task, grouped together so the owner is not flooded: after the device has been quiet for a minute, one message sums up the work, such as "12 cleaning tasks finished".
• Reminders before things expire: services, certificates and duct cleaning, 14 days before they are due, on the day, and if they become a week late, by notification and email.

Each person chooses how much they want to hear: every task, or only the important things, such as failures, opening and closing, and sign-off.

What this changes

With Chef Hygiene, the owner of a takeaway can be at the wholesaler and still know the opening checks were done at 4:10 pm. The owner of three restaurants can see which site signed off and which did not. A manager on a day off is not called about a warm fridge, because the right person was already told and the action is already written down.

The owner's question changes from "Did you do it?" to "I can see you did it. Thank you." That changes the relationship between owners and their teams. Staff who do the work well get the credit, with their name on every check. Problems are seen early, when they are small and cheap to fix. And the owner can finally switch off at night, knowing that if something important happens, they will hear about it.

Less worry. Less chasing. Fewer surprises.

7. The price: £2.99, and why we keep it low

What Chef Hygiene costs

Chef Hygiene costs £2.99 a month for each site. That is the whole price for the subscription:

• Unlimited staff. Add every chef, porter, server and manager. No extra cost per person.
• No contract. Pay month by month and cancel any time in your app store.
• 14 days free. Every new business gets a free trial, and no card is needed to start.
• Every feature included. Daily checks, temperatures, cleaning, allergens, deliveries, team, training, fire safety, notifications, the free practice inspection, the inspector pack and the secure inspector link.
• One optional extra. The AI inspector costs £0.99 each time you use it, with no subscription, and the first one is free.

Payment is handled by Apple, Google or Microsoft through the app store, so Chef Hygiene never sees your card details. In other countries, the store shows the price in your own currency.

How that compares

Here is how Chef Hygiene compares with other food safety apps used in the UK. These are the prices each company showed on its own website or app store page when we checked on 12 October 2026. Prices change, plans differ and some are quoted before VAT, so always check each company's current price yourself.

Some tools are free in a limited form, such as the free UK Food Safety App or the free tier of some general checklist apps, and some large systems are sold by quote only. Free tools can be a good start for very simple needs; most of them do not include the team, notifications, fire safety, multi-language and inspection features a busy kitchen needs every day.

Feature by feature: Chef Hygiene and other UK food safety apps

✓ yes · ~ partly, or only on higher plans · ✗ no (they say so, or our checks found none) · — not shown on their website or app store page when we checked

Prices checked on each company's own page on 12 October 2026. Features from our review of their websites and app store pages in September and October 2026. Apps change often; check each app yourself before deciding. Chef Hygiene is not linked to any of these companies.

And outside the UK?

Chef Hygiene works in 50 countries, so we also looked at the main food safety apps used by restaurants in North America and mainland Europe. Many of them do not publish a price at all and ask businesses to book a demo for a quote.

USA and Canada

✓ yes · ~ partly, or only on higher plans · ✗ no (they say so) · — not shown on their website when we checked

Checked on each company's own website on 12 October 2026. Many companies show little detail publicly, so "—" means "not shown", not "not available". Apps change often; check each app yourself. Chef Hygiene is not linked to any of these companies.

Mainland Europe

✓ yes · ~ partly, or only on higher plans · ✗ no (they say so) · — not shown on their website when we checked

Checked on each company's own website on 12 October 2026. Many companies show little detail publicly, so "—" means "not shown", not "not available". Apps change often; check each app yourself. Chef Hygiene is not linked to any of these companies.

Why is it so low?

People often ask a simple question: if other apps charge £20, £70 or £150 a month, why does Chef Hygiene charge £2.99? Is something missing? Is there a catch?

There is no catch. There are three honest reasons.

1. We want to help as many kitchens as possible. Chef Hygiene was built by someone who spent more than two decades in kitchens and saw how much time, money and worry paperwork costs small businesses. A family takeaway, a small café or a new restaurant should not have to choose between keeping proper records and paying the rent. At £2.99, the cost of doing food safety properly is less than the price of a coffee each month. The goal is to make good records normal in every kitchen, not a luxury for the big chains.

2. Software can be cheap to run when it is built well. Chef Hygiene was designed from the start to be light and efficient. The cost of running one site's records is a few pennies a month. We do not need a large sales team, expensive offices or long contracts to pay for. We would rather have thousands of kitchens paying a fair, small price than a few kitchens paying a large one.

3. We are building a network, not just an app. Chef Hygiene is growing into a network that connects kitchens with local engineers and, soon, with diners who care about hygiene. The more kitchens that use it, the more useful it becomes for everyone. A low price helps the network grow, and a strong network is good for every business in it.

There is a simple promise behind the price: we will never charge a commission on your business. Not on engineers' jobs, and not on table bookings when they arrive. Chef Hygiene earns its living from a fair, low subscription, not from taking a cut of your work.

What paper really costs

Paper looks free, but it is not. A typical kitchen spends many hours a month writing up diaries, chasing missing checks and searching for records before an inspection. Printed diaries and folders cost money. And the biggest cost is hidden: a lower hygiene rating because the records were not good enough. A lower rating is shown on the door, on the website, on delivery apps and online, and it can cost far more in lost customers than any app ever could. A re-rating visit costs a business between £190 and £350 in fees in many areas, plus months of waiting.

At £2.99 a month, Chef Hygiene usually pays for itself the first time it saves an hour of paperwork.

8. Your records are yours, always

Never lose a record again

With paper, records can be lost, damaged, thrown away or simply not found. With Chef Hygiene, every record is stored safely in the cloud the moment it is saved, signed with a name and a time, and never changed or deleted afterwards. If a tablet breaks or a phone is lost, nothing is lost: sign in on a new device, and every record is still there. If the internet drops, the app keeps working and saves the checks when it comes back.

If you stop your subscription

Chef Hygiene does not hold your records hostage. If the free trial ends or a subscription stops, the site is paused: the staff screens stop, and your records are kept safe. The owner can still sign in, download the full inspector pack as a PDF, and subscribe again at any time to carry on exactly where they left off.

If you delete your account

If an owner decides to leave Chef Hygiene for good, the app asks them to download their records first, as the inspector pack PDF and spreadsheet, so they keep a complete copy. Deleting an account is protected by a code sent by email, so nobody can do it by mistake or without permission, and there is a 30-day period in which the owner can change their mind. After that, the business, its sites, records, photos and staff are removed for good. Food safety authorities often expect businesses to keep records for a period of time, so we recommend keeping your downloaded copy for at least two years.

Safe and private

• Your records are stored in the United Kingdom, in London.
• Each business can only ever see its own data. The database is built with strict row-level security and is tested to make sure one business can never see another's records.
• Passwords and PINs are stored only in protected, hashed form.
• Card details never reach us: Apple, Google and Microsoft handle payment.
• Error reports never include records, photos, email addresses or internet addresses.
• We never sell your data and never use it for advertising.
• Chef Hygiene follows the UK GDPR. The business owns its kitchen's records; Chef Hygiene keeps them on the business's behalf. Our privacy notice explains everything in plain words.

9. One app for 50 countries and 36 languages

Chef Hygiene started in the United Kingdom, where its founder ran a kitchen for many years. But kitchens everywhere face the same daily challenge, and food safety is a language every country speaks in its own way. So Chef Hygiene was built to work across borders from the start.

50 countries today

Chef Hygiene supports the food safety rules of 50 countries and territories:

The United Kingdom (England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, each with its own rules), Ireland, Iceland, the United States (by state) and Canada (by province), and across Europe: France, Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium, Portugal, Germany, Austria, Poland, Romania, Italy, Greece, Denmark, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Cyprus, Malta, Sweden, Norway, Finland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Croatia, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Slovenia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Liechtenstein, San Marino, Gibraltar, Monaco, Moldova, Andorra, Serbia, Jersey, Guernsey, the Isle of Man, Turkey, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Albania, North Macedonia and Ukraine.

For each one, Chef Hygiene knows the inspection body and how inspections work, whether there is a public rating scheme, the temperature rules, the staff health rules, the allergen rules, the fire safety basics and the emergency numbers. A kitchen in Lisbon, Warsaw, Istanbul or Toronto gets an app that feels local, not a British app with a flag changed.

36 languages

Kitchens are global teams. A single restaurant in London, Paris or Berlin might have staff from ten different countries. Chef Hygiene speaks 36 languages, from Arabic and Bengali to Ukrainian and Urdu, so each person can use the app in the language they understand best. And because the owner and the inspector see an English copy of every note written in another language, nobody is left out and nothing is lost in translation.

10. More than an app: the Chef Hygiene network

Chef Hygiene began as a better way to keep records. It is growing into something bigger: a network that brings together the people who make eating out safe. Kitchens, the engineers who keep them running, and the diners who eat in them.

For engineers: get call-outs from kitchens near you (live)

Every kitchen depends on engineers. When the gas goes off on a Saturday night, the fridge dies before a delivery, the extraction fan stops or the drains block, a restaurant needs someone good, nearby, now. And every good local engineer wants more of exactly that kind of work.

The Chef Hygiene engineer network connects them directly:

• Who can join: gas engineers, electricians, plumbers, refrigeration and air-conditioning engineers, extraction and duct cleaners, pest control companies and other trades that kitchens need.
• How it works for engineers: an engineer creates a free account in the Chef Hygiene app, chooses their trades and the areas they cover, sets the days and hours they work, and says whether they take emergency call-outs. They can see how many restaurants have tapped Call.
• How it works for kitchens: under Who to call, a restaurant sees local engineers for each trade with a Call button and an Open now label. One tap, and they are speaking to someone nearby.
• Certificates, kept private: engineers can store their certificates and licences in the app. They are not shown to everyone. A restaurant taps Ask to see certificates, and the engineer chooses to share them for seven days. Engineers get reminders 60 and 30 days before a certificate expires. Chef Hygiene shows the details an engineer gives; restaurants should always check registrations, such as a Gas Safe number in the UK, on the official register.
• No commission. No bidding. No lead fees. This is a promise. Engineers keep every penny of every job. There are no auctions for leads, no paying to quote, no percentage taken from their work.
• The price: the first month is free, then 99p a month, with no contract.
• Country rules: the network follows each country's licensing rules for trades such as gas work, so the right qualifications are asked for in the right places.

The network opens area by area, so that every engineer who joins has real kitchens near them.

For diners: eat where hygiene matters (live, and growing)

Diners care about hygiene. When choosing where to eat, more and more people check a food hygiene rating first. But a rating is a snapshot from one visit, sometimes years ago. Diners never see what happens every day.

Chef Hygiene is building a bridge between kitchens that take hygiene seriously and the diners who want to find them.

Live today:

• Free diner accounts at chefhygiene.com/diners. No password needed: sign in with an email code, or with Apple or Google. Diners choose a nickname and their area.
• Safe places near you: diners see kitchens near them that use Chef Hygiene and have chosen to share a public page.
• Restaurant public trust pages: a restaurant can choose to switch on a public page. It shows a link to its official hygiene rating, how many of the last 30 days its daily checks were completed (with no staff names and no temperatures), and, if the restaurant chooses, its allergen chart. The restaurant gets a QR code to print for the table, the window or the menu. It is off unless the restaurant turns it on.
• Invite friends: diners can share a link or send one invitation email to a friend.

This turns daily hard work in the kitchen into something customers can see and trust. A restaurant that does its checks every day deserves credit for it, not only on inspection day.

Coming soon:

• Dish of the week. Once a month, diners will vote for the best dish from kitchens with top hygiene ratings. The winners will be promoted to diners in their area. Good food and good hygiene, celebrated together. Voting will be protected so that each verified diner gets one fair vote.
• Book a table, straight from the app. Verified diners will be able to book a table in a few taps at restaurants that take food hygiene seriously. For diners, there will be no booking fees. For restaurants, there will be no commission, ever: every booking, every guest and every penny will be theirs. A restaurant's hygiene will win it guests, and the guests will stay the restaurant's own customers.
• Verified diners. To keep votes and bookings fair, diners will be able to verify their phone number simply, for example through WhatsApp.

The bigger picture: a network for everything food safety touches

The long-term vision is a network for every business that serves food. Today, Chef Hygiene is made for restaurants and takeaways. Next, it will bring cafés, bakeries and dessert shops, butchers and corner shops, each with their own checklists. After that, the same idea can help pubs, clubs, schools, care homes and any place where food safety matters.

Each new kind of business makes the network stronger: more kitchens for engineers to serve, more places for diners to trust, and more people learning from each other about doing food safety well.

11. What is coming next

Chef Hygiene is growing every week. Here is what is being built or planned. These features are not live yet, and plans can change, but this is where we are heading:

• Table booking for verified diners, with no commission for restaurants and no fees for diners.
• Dish of the week, the monthly diner vote for the best dish from kitchens with top hygiene ratings.
• Temperature sensors and probes: use your own, buy from anyone. Some food safety companies make money by selling or renting their own probes and sensors, often tied to long contracts. Chef Hygiene will never do that. We are not a hardware shop, and we have no plans to sell sensors or probes. Instead, Chef Hygiene is being built to work with as many sensors and probes as possible: Wi-Fi fridge and freezer sensors that send readings automatically, sensors from popular smart-home brands, and Bluetooth food probes. A "Works with Chef Hygiene" list on our website will show every device we support, so you can buy the one you like, from any shop, at the normal price, with no commission to us. Already own a sensor or probe that is not on the list? Write to us at info@chefhygiene.com with the make and model, and we will look at adding it to the app. Once connected, fridge and freezer temperatures will be recorded day and night without anyone lifting a finger.
• Food labels, including labels for prepacked-for-direct-sale food (Natasha's Law in the UK).
• AI that reads paperwork, such as delivery notes and handwritten records.
• Cafés, bakeries, dessert shops, butchers and corner shops, each with their own checklists.
• More countries, starting with Australia and New Zealand.
• More languages, as new countries join.

12. How to start in ten minutes

Getting started with Chef Hygiene is designed to take minutes, not days.

1. Get the app. Download Chef Hygiene on Android or Windows, or open app.chefhygiene.com in any browser. The iOS app (iPhone, iPad and Mac) is coming through the App Store.
2. Create your account. Sign up with your email, or with Apple or Google. Only the owner needs an account.
3. Add your business. Choose your country (and nation, state or province), your type of business and your address. The app sets the right rules for you. In the UK, it can find your business and its official hygiene rating.
4. Set up your kitchen. Add your fridges and freezers, your menu dishes for the allergen chart, and your suppliers. Add the opening times so the app knows when the opening checks are due.
5. Add your team. Add each person's name and give them a PIN, pair a kitchen tablet with a code or QR code, or put the app on a staff member's phone. Give each person their own jobs if you like.
6. Set up emergency information. Add photos and locations of the gas valve, water stopcock, fuse box and fire alarm panel, and the numbers of your engineers.
7. Start your first day. Run the opening checks, log the fridges, and you are using Chef Hygiene.

Your 14-day free trial starts when you create your first business, and you do not need a card to start. After the trial, each site is £2.99 a month.

The setup guide on the website and inside the app shows every step in pictures, and the help chat can answer questions in your own language.

13. A short guide to kitchen food safety

Whether or not you use Chef Hygiene, every kitchen benefits from getting the basics right. Here is a short, practical guide to the food safety principles behind every check in the app. Always follow the official guidance in your own country, as the exact rules and numbers can differ.

The four Cs

Food safety in a professional kitchen comes down to four simple ideas, often called the four Cs:

• Cleaning. Clean and sanitise work surfaces, equipment and utensils, especially those that touch ready-to-eat food. Clean as you go, follow a written cleaning schedule, and use chemicals at the right strength and contact time.
• Cooking. Cook food thoroughly so harmful bacteria are killed. Use a clean, accurate probe thermometer to check the core temperature in the thickest part of the food. Reheat food until it is steaming hot throughout.
• Chilling. Keep chilled food cold, cool cooked food quickly, and keep fridges and freezers at the right temperatures. Bacteria grow fastest at warm temperatures, often called the "danger zone".
• Cross-contamination. Keep raw and ready-to-eat food apart: separate boards, knives, storage and hands. Wash hands thoroughly, especially after handling raw meat, eggs or unwashed vegetables, and after using the toilet.

Many countries add a fifth idea: management, meaning that the business plans its controls, trains its staff, and keeps records that prove the controls are working. This is the part Chef Hygiene makes easiest.

Temperatures that matter

Exact limits vary by country and should always be checked against local rules, but these are widely used:

• Chilled food is usually kept at 8°C or below by law in the UK, with 5°C or below as good practice; many countries use 4°C or below.
• Frozen food is usually kept at −18°C or below.
• Cooking to a core temperature of around 75°C, or an equivalent time and temperature combination, is a common guideline.
• Hot holding at 63°C or above is a common legal limit.
• Cooling cooked food quickly, for example to below 8°C within about 90 minutes in UK guidance, or in two stages in some other countries, reduces the time bacteria have to grow.

Chef Hygiene sets the right limits for each country automatically, so staff do not need to remember the numbers.

HACCP in plain words

HACCP stands for Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points. It sounds complicated, but the idea is simple:

1. Look at what could go wrong with the food you make: bacteria, allergens, physical objects such as glass, or chemicals.
2. Find the critical points where you can control those risks: cooking, cooling, chilled storage, allergen separation and so on.
3. Set limits for each point, such as a minimum cooking temperature.
4. Check that the limits are met, every time it matters.
5. Act when something goes wrong, and write down what you did.
6. Review your system regularly to make sure it still works.
7. Keep records that prove you are doing all of this.

Most small businesses do not need to build HACCP from nothing. Systems such as Safer Food, Better Business in the UK and similar guides in other countries give ready-made safe methods. Chef Hygiene turns those safe methods into daily checks, timers, reminders and records.

Allergens

Food allergies can be life-threatening. In the UK and EU, food businesses must give customers accurate information about the 14 major allergens in the food they serve. Good allergen control means:

• knowing exactly what is in every dish, including sauces, dressings and garnishes;
• keeping that information up to date whenever a recipe or a supplier changes;
• preventing cross-contact during storage, preparation and service;
• training every member of staff to answer allergen questions accurately, and to say when they do not know rather than guess.

Staff health

Food handlers who are ill with symptoms such as vomiting or diarrhoea should stay away from work until they have been free of symptoms for 48 hours, and owners should keep a simple record of illness and return to work. Staff should report illness before they start a shift, not after.

Training

Everyone who handles food should be trained or supervised in food hygiene to a level that matches their job. Many businesses use recognised food hygiene courses. Keep a record of who was trained, when, and when their training should be refreshed.

Pests

Look for signs of pests every day: droppings, gnawing, nests, insects, damaged packaging. Store food off the floor and in sealed containers, keep doors and windows proofed, and use a professional pest control contractor where needed. Record what you see and what you did.

Fire and gas safety

Kitchens are high-risk places for fire. Keep extraction canopies and ducts clean, test fire alarms and emergency lighting, keep fire exits clear, and make sure extinguishers and fire blankets are serviced. Every member of staff should know where the gas emergency shut-off valve is and how to use it, and what to do if they smell gas: turn off the gas, do not use electrical switches, open doors and windows, get everyone out, and call the gas emergency number.

Records

The golden rule of food safety records is simple: if it is not written down, it did not happen, at least as far as an inspector is concerned. Records should be completed at the time, by the person who did the work, and kept safely for the period your local authority expects. Good records protect your customers, your staff, your rating and your business.

14. Frequently asked questions

What is Chef Hygiene?

Chef Hygiene is a digital food safety and HACCP records app for restaurants and takeaways. It replaces the paper diary with simple daily checks on a phone, tablet or computer, including temperature logs, cleaning schedules, allergen charts, delivery checks, staff training records and fire safety checks, and keeps every record ready for a food safety inspection.

Is Chef Hygiene a HACCP app?

Yes. Chef Hygiene helps food businesses follow food safety management systems based on HACCP principles, and the safe-method systems built on them, such as Safer Food, Better Business in England and Wales. It records the checks at your critical control points, such as cooking, cooling and chilled storage, along with the actions taken when something goes wrong.

How much does Chef Hygiene cost?

£2.99 a month for each site, with unlimited staff and no contract. There is a 14-day free trial, and no card is needed to start. The AI inspector is an optional extra at £0.99 per inspection, and the first one is free.

Is there a contract?

No. You pay monthly through your app store and can cancel at any time.

Do my staff need email addresses or passwords?

No. Only the owner and managers need an account. Staff use a shared kitchen tablet with their name and a 4-digit PIN, or their own phone after scanning a one-time code.

Does it work without internet?

Yes. Chef Hygiene works offline and sends the checks automatically when the connection returns. The emergency information also works offline.

Which countries does Chef Hygiene support?

50 countries and territories: the UK, Ireland, Iceland, the United States, Canada and most of Europe, including France, Spain, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Turkey and Ukraine. Each country has its own rules pack.

Which languages does Chef Hygiene speak?

36 languages, including English, Arabic, Bengali, Chinese, French, German, Polish, Portuguese, Punjabi, Romanian, Spanish, Turkish, Ukrainian and Urdu. Staff can write in their own language, and the owner and inspector see an English copy.

Will an inspector accept digital records?

Food safety authorities generally accept digital records as long as they are complete, accurate and can be shown when asked. Chef Hygiene creates a clear inspector pack of all your records, which you can show on screen, save as a PDF, print, or share with a secure link and QR code. Chef Hygiene is not part of any government food safety authority or local council, and the final judgement is always the inspector's.

Can records be changed after they are saved?

No. Records are never changed or deleted after they are saved. Corrections are saved as new records, so the full history is always visible. This is what inspectors want to see.

What happens to my records if I cancel?

Your records are kept safe. You can still sign in and download your full records as a PDF, and you can subscribe again at any time to carry on. If you delete your account, you are asked to download your records first, and there is a 30-day period to change your mind.

Where is my data stored?

In the United Kingdom, in London. Each business can only see its own data, and we never sell data or use it for advertising.

Can Chef Hygiene tell me when something goes wrong?

Yes. The owner and managers get notifications for failed checks, opening checks running late, opening and closing checks done, the daily sign-off and grouped routine tasks, plus reminders before certificates and services expire.

What is the practice inspection?

A free walk-round of about ten minutes with simple yes-or-no questions across twelve areas. It shows your likely scores and a list of things to fix before a real inspection.

What is the AI inspector?

An optional mock inspection: you photograph 15 places in your kitchen and answer 10 questions, and the AI writes a report on what to improve. It costs £0.99 each time, and your first one is free. It is an estimate to help you improve, not an official rating.

Do I need to buy special sensors or probes?

No. Chef Hygiene works with a normal probe thermometer and a big number pad or your voice. Automatic sensor and probe connections are coming soon, and we will support devices from many brands rather than selling our own. You will be able to buy any supported device from any shop, and if yours is not supported yet, you can ask us to add it.

Does Chef Hygiene help with fire safety?

Yes. It includes a fire risk assessment with an action plan, daily, weekly and monthly fire checks, fire drills and training, certificates with expiry reminders, and the location and photos of the gas valve, water stopcock, fuse box and fire alarm panel, so anyone can turn things off in an emergency.

Can I use Chef Hygiene for more than one restaurant?

Yes. One account can run up to five sites today, each with its own staff, checks and subscription.

I am an engineer. How do I join the network?

Create a free account in the Chef Hygiene app as an engineer, choose your trades, areas and working hours, and restaurants near you can call you directly. The first month is free, then 99p a month. There is no commission, no bidding and no lead fees.

I am a diner. How can I use Chef Hygiene?

Create a free diner account at chefhygiene.com/diners to find kitchens near you that share their daily hygiene checks. Dish of the week voting and table booking are coming soon.

Who made Chef Hygiene?

Chef Hygiene was created by a restaurant owner with 21 years of experience in the food industry, whose own restaurant held a five-star food hygiene rating for years. It is built from real kitchen experience, for real kitchens.

15. A final word from the kitchen

Every day, in every city, millions of people trust a kitchen they cannot see. They trust that the chicken was cooked through, that the fridge was cold, that the allergy question was answered honestly, that the surfaces were clean and the hands were washed. That trust is earned not in one big moment, but in thousands of small ones, every single day.

The people who work in kitchens are some of the hardest-working people in the world. They should spend their time cooking, not fighting paperwork. And the owners who build these businesses, often with their families' savings and their whole lives, deserve tools that make their lives easier, at a price that does not add to their worries.

That is why Chef Hygiene exists. It was built by someone who stood where you stand: at the pass at the end of a long night, with a clipboard, wondering whether everything was done. It was built so that the answer to that question is always yes, and so that you can prove it.

Keep your kitchen safe. Keep your rating high. Keep your records, forever. And spend less time on paperwork and more time on the food.

Welcome to Chef Hygiene.

Start your 14-day free trial at chefhygiene.com. No card needed.

The Chef Hygiene team