The SFBB 4-weekly review, done properly

What the review is for

Safer Food Better Business is the Food Standards Agency's food safety management pack for small catering businesses. In England and Wales it is the most common way a small restaurant, pub or hotel kitchen meets its legal duty to have a documented food safety management system based on HACCP principles. The pack has three working parts: the safe methods you set up once and revisit when something changes, the daily diary you sign every trading day, and the 4-weekly review.

Daily records go wrong slowly, which is why the review exists. No single day's page will show a fridge that has drifted warm over three weeks, or a closing check that quietly stopped happening on Sundays. Nor will it show the new starter nobody walked through the cooling rules. The review is where someone responsible reads the last four weeks together and asks whether the system still matches the kitchen.

The questions it asks

The FSA's review page is a short set of questions, and they are better designed than they look. In substance they ask:

• Have the daily diary pages been completed every day you traded, and signed?
• Were any problems recorded, and what was done about them at the time?
• Have any of your suppliers, your menu, your equipment or your staff changed?
• Do any of the safe methods need updating because of those changes?
• Has any equipment failed or been repaired in the period?
• Have any staff joined or changed roles, and have they been trained on the safe methods that apply to them?

Honest answers are what make it worth doing. A review that says "new fryer installed, cooking safe method updated, two new starters trained on cross-contamination" tells you and an inspector far more than four weeks of ticks, because it shows the system keeping up with the kitchen.

Who should complete it

Someone with authority over the kitchen, which in most venues means the owner, the general manager or the head chef. The review is there to change things, so it needs doing by a person who can order a replacement probe, rewrite a safe method or book training. Handing it to whoever is quietest on a Tuesday defeats the point. Keep it with the same role every time, too, so whoever reads the reviews can see drift from one to the next.

The mistakes inspectors see most

• The review is missing entirely, with the diary otherwise complete. This is the most common finding, and it reads as "nobody in charge looks at this".
• Reviews filled in retrospectively in one sitting, in the same pen, the week of the inspection. Officers have seen thousands of diaries and spot this straight away.
• Problems in the diary that never reach the review. A fridge failure written on the Tuesday page with no corrective action, and no mention of it four pages later, is worse than either gap on its own.
• Safe methods that no longer match the kitchen: a menu that has gained a smoked item, a sous vide bath that appears in no method, allergens handled from memory.
• New starters with no training record. The review asks about staff changes because this is where systems tend to fail.

Making it a habit that survives a busy month

The kitchens that keep the review honest book it in on the same day every four weeks and protect the twenty minutes it takes, the way they would a stocktake. Read the four weeks of pages first, then write down what you found. That beats "all fine" written from memory every time it matters. When the same problem turns up in two reviews running, stop rewording the entry and change the safe method or the piece of equipment behind it.

A digital system helps mostly by keeping everyone honest. Each entry carries the time it was made, and a failure cannot be closed without a corrective action. The review also comes up when it is due, so nobody is left trying to remember it the day a white van parks outside. On paper the discipline has to come from the person. Either way, the review only works if somebody reads it as well as writes it.

This guide is general information for UK hospitality operators, not legal advice. Requirements can differ by premises and local authority: your fire risk assessment, your food safety management system and your local EHO are the authorities on your own site.