HACCP plan for a restaurant: what goes in it and how to write one
A restaurant HACCP plan is a written document that lists where food can make someone sick in your kitchen, the point where you stop that (a temperature, a time), how you check it, and what you do when a check fails. Most plans are four to ten pages and come with the daily logs that prove you did the checks. You write it from your own menu, not from a generic template.
HACCP stands for Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points. It is an old system, built for food processing, and the FDA uses it as the model for retail food safety. This guide covers when you need a written plan, the seven steps, a worked example, and what inspectors actually look at. If you only want the logs, the free temperature logs are a faster start.
Do I need a written HACCP plan for my restaurant?
Often, no. Most restaurants are not required to hold a full written HACCP plan. They are required to follow the food code their state or city adopted: hold cold food at 41°F or below, hot food at 135°F or above (140°F in some places, including New York City), cook to the right temperature, cool food fast, and so on. The FDA Food Code, which most states base their rules on, asks for a written HACCP plan only for certain specialized processes [1].
Those processes are the ones where the ordinary rules do not make the food safe on their own. Examples the Food Code names include smoking or curing food to preserve it, packaging food in reduced oxygen (vacuum bags, and many sous vide and cook-chill systems), keeping live shellfish in a tank, and a few others [1]. If your kitchen does one of these, your health department will usually ask for a plan before approving it, and may ask for a variance too.
Even when a plan is not required, many owners write one for three reasons:
- An inspector cited you. A written plan with logs is the cleanest answer to a repeat citation for holding temperatures.
- A buyer or landlord asks. Some caterers, schools, hospitals and franchisors want to see a food safety plan before they sign.
- Staff turn over. A plan puts the rules on paper, so a new line cook does not learn them from whoever trained last.
The first thing to do is ask your local health department one question: "Does my menu or any of my processes need a written HACCP plan?" Write down who answered and the date. That one answer saves you from writing a plan you do not need, or skipping one you do.
HACCP plan vs food safety plan vs food safety program
People use these words as if they were the same. They overlap, but they are not the same thing.
| Term | What it usually means | Who asks for it |
|---|---|---|
| HACCP plan | Hazard analysis, critical control points, limits, monitoring, corrective actions, records, verification, by process or menu group | Regulators for specialized processes; some customers |
| Food safety plan | Often the same thing in plain words. In the FDA's rules for food manufacturers, "food safety plan" is the formal name, which is a different rule from a restaurant's | Manufacturers (FDA); owners who want a plain-language name |
| Food safety program | The set of habits a restaurant runs: handwashing, temperature checks, cleaning, training, logs. Less formal than HACCP | Health inspectors expect it in practice |
For a restaurant, a good plan lands in the middle: HACCP structure for the foods that cause most citations (hot and cold holding, cooking, cooling, reheating), written in plain words and tied to your menu.
The seven HACCP principles as restaurant steps
The seven principles come from Codex and the FDA publishes them for retail and food service [2]. Here is each one translated into kitchen work.
1. List the hazards for each menu group
Go through your menu and group dishes that follow the same path: raw chicken dishes, ground beef, cooked rice and pasta, cut produce, raw fish, soups and sauces cooled for later. For each group, write what could go wrong: bacteria surviving cooking (biological), cleaner in the food (chemical), a piece of glass or metal (physical), and allergens. Biological hazards from temperature are the ones that matter most for citations.
2. Find the critical control points
A critical control point is the one step where a control makes the hazard go away or drop to a safe level, and no later step would fix it. For chicken, cooking is a control point: once it is cooked to 165°F, the bacteria are killed. For a pan of cooked rice, holding below 41°F or above 135°F is the control: no later step reverses the growth of bacteria that happens in between.
3. Set a critical limit for each point
A limit is a number you can measure. Typical ones from the FDA Food Code [1]:
- Cold holding: 41°F (5°C) or below.
- Hot holding: 135°F (57°C) or above (check your city: New York City writes 140°F).
- Cooking poultry and stuffed foods: 165°F. Ground meat: 155°F. Whole cuts of beef, pork and fish: 145°F.
- Reheating food for hot holding: 165°F within two hours.
- Cooling: from 135°F to 70°F within two hours, then to 41°F within four more hours.
4. Decide how you monitor it
Who checks, with what, how often. "Line cook on the grill station checks the core temperature of each batch of chicken with the probe thermometer at the end of cooking" is a monitoring step. "Staff check temperatures" is not. For holding, most kitchens check every two to four hours; the four-hour mark matters because it is how long the Food Code allows food to sit without temperature control under its time rule [1].
5. Write the corrective action
This is what staff do when a reading is outside the limit, so no one has to guess in the middle of a rush. For example: "Cold well reads 46°F. Check the thermometer. Move the food to the walk-in. If the food has been above 41°F for more than four hours, throw it away. Call the repair line. Write the reading and the action on the log." Inspectors look for this line more than any other, because it shows the check led to something.
6. Verify that the plan works
Verification is the manager checking the checkers: calibrating thermometers (ice water should read 32°F), reviewing the week's logs, watching one cook take a temperature, and re-reading the plan when the menu changes. Put a date and initials on it.
7. Keep records
The logs are the proof. A plan with no logs shows an inspector what you intended; the logs show what you did. Keep them where staff can reach them and an inspector can read them, and keep them for the period your health department sets (many ask for 90 days to a year; ask).
A worked example: grilled chicken thigh
Here is one menu item written as a HACCP row. Copy the shape, not the numbers, and check the limits against your own code.
| Step | Hazard | Critical limit | Monitoring | If it fails |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Receiving | Bacteria grown in transit | 41°F or below on arrival | Probe one case; check date and condition on every delivery | Refuse the delivery; log supplier and reading |
| Cold storage | Growth in the walk-in | 41°F or below | Read the walk-in thermometer at open and close | Move product, call repair, discard anything above 41°F for over 4 hours |
| Cooking | Salmonella and other bacteria surviving | 165°F core | Probe the thickest piece of each batch | Keep cooking, re-probe |
| Hot holding | Growth while waiting | 135°F or above (140°F where your city says so) | Probe every 2 hours | Reheat to 165°F within 2 hours or discard |
| Cooling leftovers | Growth while cooling | 135→70°F in 2 hours; 70→41°F in 4 more | Log time and temperature at 2 and 6 hours | Reheat to 165°F and start again, or discard |
Write one table like this for each menu group, not each dish. A restaurant with fifty dishes often has six to ten groups.
What goes in the binder besides the plan
Inspectors do not read a plan for pleasure. They look for these pages and compare them with what they see on the line.
- Menu groups and process flow: one line per group showing the path from delivery to plate.
- Monitoring logs: cold storage, hot holding, cooking, cooling. See the restaurant temperature log sheet guide for what each column should hold.
- Corrective action sheet: the "if it fails" column on one page staff can read in ten seconds.
- Thermometer calibration record: who calibrated which thermometer and when.
- Training record: who has been shown the plan, with a date.
- Supplier list and receiving rules: where food comes from and what you refuse.
- Review log: a line each time the plan is re-read or changed.
Common mistakes in a restaurant plan
- Copying a template word for word. A plan for a pizzeria listing sushi rice or a sous vide step it never does tells the inspector nobody read it.
- Limits without numbers. "Keep food cold" is not a limit. "41°F or below" is.
- No corrective action. A log full of readings, one above the limit, and nothing written next to it is worse than no log: it shows you saw the problem and did nothing.
- Logs filled in at the end of the week. Identical neat handwriting for seven days and readings that are all 38°F look invented. Record at the time.
- Using the wrong code. The federal limit may be 135°F while your city says 140°F. Use the stricter local number.
- Never updating it. A new dish, a new fryer or a sous vide bath changes the plan. Re-read it whenever the menu changes and at least once a year.
How long does it take to write one?
By hand, a small restaurant with a short menu usually needs one to two days of focused work: list the menu groups, look up your local limits, write the tables, make the logs, and train staff. Consultants quote more; one figure in our research was about $1,000 for a plan, and generic templates sell for a few tens of dollars to a few hundred. A plan built from your own menu, with logs ready to print, is the part Full Room does: you answer questions about the menu and equipment and get the plan and logs back. You can try the free logs first.
After an inspection citation
If you were cited for holding temperatures, start with two things before a full plan: fix the equipment or the habit that caused it, and begin logging at once. A re-inspection looks at what changed. Start two logs (hot and cold holding), write the corrective action on the first out-of-range reading, and keep them next to the line. The cold holding temperature guide and the hot holding temperature guide cover the usual causes.
Questions
What is a HACCP plan in simple words?
A written list of where your food could make people sick, the number you must hit to stop it, how you check, and what you do if you miss.
Is a HACCP plan required by law for restaurants?
Not for most ordinary restaurant menus. It is required for specialized processes such as curing, smoking for preservation, reduced oxygen packaging and some shellfish systems, and some health departments or customers ask for one anyway. Ask yours.
How many pages is a restaurant HACCP plan?
Usually four to ten pages of plan plus the logs. Length is not the goal; a clear table per menu group is.
Can I use a free HACCP template?
You can use one as a starting shape. Replace every example with your own dishes, equipment and local temperature limits, and delete steps you do not do.
How often should I update my HACCP plan?
When the menu, equipment or process changes, when your local code changes, and at least once a year. Note the date of each review.
What is the difference between HACCP and a temperature log?
The log is one record inside a HACCP plan. The plan says what to check and what to do; the log shows that you checked.
Sources
- FDA Food Code 2022 (hot and cold holding, cooking, cooling, specialized processes), U.S. Food and Drug Administration
- HACCP principles and application guidelines, U.S. Food and Drug Administration
- Safe minimum internal temperature chart, USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service
- NYC rules on hot holding equipment (140°F), American Legal Publishing
Related: all food safety guides.