Food safety by business type
Food safety & HACCP for a Pub
A food safety pack for a pub kitchen — wide menu, weekend surges, cellar and bar.
A pub often runs a surprisingly wide food menu from a modest kitchen, with big weekend surges, bar staff who also serve food, and a cellar to keep clean. All of that has to sit inside a documented HACCP-based system under EC Regulation 852/2004. FiveRate builds a plan that covers the kitchen, the bar-food handover and the cellar, so nothing falls between the two teams.
Free HACCP plan on the house. Full EHO-ready pack from £14.99/mo with a 7-day free trial.
The real risks
Top food safety hazards in a pub
Your HACCP plan has to be built around the hazards your pub actually carries — not a generic list. These are the ones that matter most.
Wide menu from a small kitchen
Pub menus span burgers, steaks, curries, fish, roasts and desserts, which means many ingredients and processes in a limited space — raising cross-contamination and undercooking risks, especially at busy times.
Weekend and Sunday-roast surges
Cooking large joints ahead, hot-holding gravy and vegetables for hours, and pushing high volumes at lunchtime all strain temperature control. Roast meats cooked ahead and held below 63°C are a common problem.
Bar staff handling food and allergens
Front-of-house and bar staff who take food orders and carry plates often have less food-safety training than the kitchen, yet they are the ones fielding allergy questions and handling garnishes and bar snacks.
Cellar and line hygiene
A dirty cellar, poorly cleaned beer lines and mixed food/drink storage create hygiene and pest risks that inspectors will look at alongside the kitchen.
Undercooked burgers and rare meat
Serving burgers less than thoroughly cooked, or rare joints, needs a validated approach and controls. Without them, minced and rolled meats carry bacteria through to the middle.
Critical control points
The CCPs a pub has to get right
Critical control points are the steps where a hazard is prevented or reduced to a safe level — and where an inspector will expect to see monitoring and records.
Meats and poultry cooked to 75°C core (or a validated equivalent for rare service), probe-checked and recorded.
Roast meats, gravy and vegetables held at or above 63°C; timed and discarded if held too long during a long lunch service.
Kitchen fridges and the cellar keeping chilled food at or below 8°C, with checks logged and stock rotated.
Where the marks are lost
What EHOs commonly mark pubs down for
The food hygiene rating is scored on three things: hygienic food handling, the cleanliness of the premises, and confidence in management. Pubs most often lose points on the last one — the paperwork.
- !Sunday-roast components hot-held too low with no temperature records across a long service.
- !Bar and floor staff unable to answer allergy questions because they have had no allergen training.
- !A neglected cellar — dirty, cluttered or with food and drink stored together — dragging the hygiene score down.
- !A food safety management system that the kitchen keeps but front-of-house ignores.
Allergens
Allergen management for a pub
In a pub the allergy question usually lands on a bar or floor member of staff, not the chef — so your allergen matrix has to be usable by everyone, not just the kitchen. Every menu item's 14-allergen content must be known and communicated accurately, and specials or 'chef's off-menu' dishes are a frequent gap. Train the people taking orders, not only the people cooking.
Under the 14-allergen rules (assimilated Regulation 1169/2011) and Natasha's Law, every UK food business must give accurate allergen information — the format depends on how the food is sold.
FAQ
Pub food safety questions
Does a pub serving food need a HACCP plan?
Yes. Any pub that prepares or serves food must have a documented food safety management system based on HACCP principles under EC Regulation 852/2004, typically using the FSA's Safer Food, Better Business pack.
How do we keep a Sunday roast safe when it's rammed?
Hot-hold roast meats, gravy and vegetables at 63°C or above, and put time limits on anything that drops below. Cook joints to a safe core temperature, record it, and don't let food sit warm on the pass for hours.
Do bar staff need food allergen training?
Yes — anyone taking food orders or answering allergy questions should be trained, because in a pub that is often the bar or floor team rather than the chef. An allergen matrix everyone can read is what keeps the answer consistent.
Will inspectors look at our cellar?
They can. A dirty cellar, poorly maintained beer lines or food and drink stored together are hygiene and pest risks that count towards your rating, so keep the cellar in your cleaning schedule alongside the kitchen.
Get inspection-ready
Build your pub's food safety records the easy way
FiveRate generates a HACCP plan tailored to a pub in minutes, then the full EHO-ready pack — HACCP, daily checklists, temperature logs, allergen matrix, cleaning schedule and inspection report — all written for your business.
Food safety by business type