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A probe thermometer measuring the temperature in a stainless-steel pot

Guide · Template · HACCP

HACCP checklist for restaurants and cafés – free template to tick off

Venheim editorial team

Updated 9 min read

Anyone who prepares or sells food must run own checks based on HACCP and be able to prove them. This checklist brings together the checkpoints that really matter day to day — ready to tick off. It was written in a real restaurant business; it does not replace advice from the authority, it helps you not to miss anything.

What HACCP requires

The basis is EU Regulation 852/2004 on the hygiene of foodstuffs. It obliges every food business to put in place a permanent procedure based on the HACCP principles: identify hazards, set critical control points, monitor them — and record the monitoring. The regulation applies directly in Austria (supplemented by the LMSVG, the Food Safety and Consumer Protection Act) as well as in Germany. For a small business this does not necessarily mean a thick manual, but it does mean: proving the cold chain, showing the cleaning, keeping an eye on shelf life and training the staff. What matters is the sentence most inspections hinge on: doing it is not enough — you have to be able to prove it.

The HACCP checklist to tick off

Seven areas that need checking in almost every restaurant or café. Tick the points off right here to see where something is still missing. Note: the ticks are not saved — they are for working through the list, not a record.

To put on the wall: this page has a print version — only the checklist is printed, without header or advertising. On a computer press Ctrl/Cmd + P; the print dialogue can also save it as a PDF.

Deliveries

Chilling, freezing & hot holding

Storage & best-before dates

Preparation & cooking

Cleaning & disinfection

Staff hygiene & training

Records & retention

How long to keep the records

For HACCP records the law gives no number, only an "appropriate period" (Art. 5(4) Regulation 852/2004). The Austrian hygiene guideline for retail businesses, which also covers restaurants, gives at least one year for cold-storage records and at least three years for training records; for the other lists we recommend the same one year. How this differs from the tax retention periods is explained in the glossary entry on record retention periods.

Keep it digital with Venheim

The checklist gives you an overview — but the authority needs proof in black and white that temperatures were measured, cleaning done and checks carried out. In Venheim your team ticks off the checkpoints on their own phones, every entry records person and time, and the monthly HACCP record is an Excel file at the press of a button. Start free, no payment details.

A checklist that scores itself: every area shows how much of it is actually on record.Demo data from the sample business Cafe Sunshine, app shown in German
Start free

Try Premium for 30 days, no payment details. After that your business carries on free on the Start plan; records stay readable and exportable.

The sign-up form is in German for now. Inside the app, everyone picks their own language — nine languages, English included.

Related

HACCP records, digitalTemperatures per appliance, cleaning and best-before dates as a monthly record — as Excel, automatically.Digital cleaning recordsThe cleaning part of HACCP in detail: tick off shift lists, person and time on every entry.Food hygiene training to practiseFor the training area: short chapters with situations from the shift, free and without an account, with a certificate of participation.Cleaning schedule templateDaily, weekly and monthly, with a sign-off column — the cleaning part of this checklist as a plan.

Frequently asked questions

What is a HACCP checklist, and is it a legal requirement?
HACCP is a method for controlling food safety hazards that EU Regulation 852/2004 requires of every food business. The checklist itself is not a legal term but the practical tool a business uses to work through its own checks and prove them — temperatures, deliveries, cleaning, staff hygiene. What is required are documented own checks; the checklist is the simplest way not to forget them.
Which temperatures apply to chilling and freezing?
The guide values are: chilling at about 5 °C at most (stricter for highly perishable food such as mince, around 2 to 4 °C), freezing at −18 °C or colder, and hot holding at 65 °C or more throughout — the Austrian WKO hygiene handbook recommends a stricter 70 °C or more for three hours at most. What counts is always the manufacturer's specification and the requirements of the product — the exact values belong in your own HACCP plan.
Do I have to print the checklist, or can I download it?
This page is built as a working web list: you can tick the points off right here to get an overview. To put it on the wall, the page has a print version (Ctrl/Cmd + P or the button above the list) — only the checklist is printed, and the print dialogue can save it as a PDF. The ticks here are not saved. If you want to keep the checkpoints permanently and ready for an inspection, tick them off digitally in Venheim; there it is recorded who did what and when.
What are the most common mistakes in HACCP records?
Most often the records are filled in afterwards (the list at the end of the month, from memory), limits exceeded are noted without an action, cleaning records are missing altogether, or the documents cannot be found during the inspection. All four mistakes happen almost only on paper — recording digitally, with person and time on every entry, largely removes them.

Sources

About Venheim

Venheim is operations software for hospitality, studios and retail — built inside a real business and used there every day. Every feature and every guide comes from that daily work and is tested against it. More about Venheim. Not legal advice — where in doubt, the authority, the chamber or a law firm has the final word.