UK Food Business Compliance Checklist

You must register with your local authority's environmental health team at least 28 days before you start trading food to the public — whether that's a fixed premises, a food van, or trading from home. Registration is free and there's no test to pass; it just puts you on their radar for inspection.

Following an inspection, your local authority gives you a hygiene score — the 0–5 Food Hygiene Rating Scheme in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, or the pass/improvement-required Food Hygiene Information Scheme in Scotland. Displaying the sticker isn't currently mandatory everywhere in the UK, but the inspection itself, and acting on what it flags, is not optional.

Every food business is legally required to have a documented food safety management system based on HACCP principles — identifying where things could go wrong (cross-contamination, undercooking, poor storage temperatures) and having a written plan to control it. Most UK kitchens build this from the FSA's free "Safer Food, Better Business" pack (England, Wales, Northern Ireland) or "CookSafe" (Scotland) rather than writing one from scratch.

Under the Food Information Regulations 2014, you must be able to tell a customer, accurately, whether any of the 14 legally recognised allergens are present in anything you sell — for food made to order this can be given verbally or in writing, but it has to be correct and available before they order, not after they ask twice.

If you pre-pack food on-site for direct sale — a sandwich made that morning and put in the fridge for someone to pick up later, for example — it needs a full ingredients list with the 14 allergens emphasised (bold, underlined or in a different colour), not just a verbal allergen answer. This is specifically about food packed before the customer orders it; made-to-order food across a counter is covered by point 4 instead.

Not a single named law, but expected as part of demonstrating "due diligence" under food safety and allergen law — if something goes wrong, being able to show staff were actually trained on allergens and hygiene, not just handed a folder on day one, matters a great deal to an inspector or a court.

Keeping food at safe temperatures (fridges, hot-holding, cooling) and having a documented cleaning schedule are both part of your HACCP-based food safety management system above — they're listed separately here because they're the two things inspectors check first, and the two most commonly found lacking in practice.

You need to be able to trace what you bought, from whom, and when — "one step back, one step forward" — so that if a supplier issues a recall or an allergen incident needs investigating, you can identify affected stock quickly. In practice this means keeping delivery notes and invoices, not just paying and binning them.