Food safety audit preparation: a labelling checklist for restaurants

To prepare your labelling for a food safety audit, check four things:

• every container has a legible name, prep date and use-by date

• shelf lives match your documented procedures

• PPDS labels carry the correct allergens emphasised

• your records go back weeks, not days

A labelling system like Labl.it produces most of that evidence automatically as labels are printed, but the checklist below applies regardless of what system you use.

Not every audit is an EHO visit

Most kitchens think of audits as the unannounced environmental health inspection that decides a food hygiene rating. That's the one with the most public consequences, but there are other types of audit it’s important to be aware of too.

Restaurant groups run their own internal audits, usually through area managers or a compliance team checking sites against brand standards. Contract caterers working in hospitals, schools and workplaces tend to be audited by their clients. Some businesses also bring in third-party auditors to find problems before anyone external does.

The scoring differs from audit to audit, but every auditor opens the fridge and sees the labels, so it’s crucial that the labelling is done right.

What auditors will look for on a label

We've covered this field by field in what an EHO looks at on your prep labels. In short, an auditor wants to see:

• What the food is, without having to lift the lid

• When it was prepped, opened or defrosted

• A use-by date that hasn't passed

• Defrosted food relabelled, rather than still carrying its freezer label

• Who prepared it, usually as initials

• Full ingredients with the 14 allergens emphasised on anything prepacked for direct sale

  
  

What auditors look for beyond the label

A tidy fridge on audit day is a good start, but experienced auditors are more interested in whether it looks like that every day, which means looking past the labels and into the system behind them.

Written shelf-life rules

The FSA's Safer food, better business pack expects kitchens to mark prepared food, and an auditor will check your labels against your documented procedures. If the same sauce has a three-day life on one tub and five on another, that shows that the procedure isn't being followed properly.

Consistency over time 

A clean week shows intent, but months of unbroken records show practice, which is a much stronger sign of a safe and compliant kitchen.

Current allergen information 

Recipes and suppliers change. An auditor may ask how a change ripples out across the kitchen, and what systems are in place to ensure those changes reach the labels.

The audit-ready checklist

The kitchens that come out of audits well don't actively prepare for them. They simply run the same checks every day, so they’re compliant all the time, and nothing has to change for inspection day.

Every day

• Every container in every fridge and freezer is labelled

• Nothing past its use-by date is in storage

• Defrosted items carry a new label with a new use-by date

• Labels are legible, with nothing written over

Every week

• Spot-check five labels against your written shelf lives

• Check PPDS labels against current recipes, especially if anything changed recently

• Review what was thrown away and why to identify patterns and prevent unnecessary waste

Before a planned audit

• Pull your labelling and waste records for the last few months, so you're not hunting for them on the day

• Check your documented procedures match what the kitchen is actually doing

• Make sure new starters know where labels come from and how dates are worked out

On the day

• Have a manager available to walk the auditor through the system

• If something is wrong, say so and explain what's changing. Auditors respond to engagement, and acknowledging a known issue along with planned action lands far better than defending it

  
  

Preparing a multi-site group

Across several sites, the main risk is that the same product is labelled differently at each one. That shows up immediately in an internal audit, and is likely to be noticed in an external one.

Three things keep a group consistent:

• One central product list that every site prints from, with shelf lives and allergens set once

• Permissions that let sites print labels without editing products

• Cross-site reporting, so head office sees gaps before an auditor does

If you're still moving sites off handwritten labels, check out our guide to transitioning a multi-site group off handwritten prep labels.

Where Labl.it fits

Labl.it is a handheld labelling device used in more than 4,000 UK kitchens. It produces audit evidence as a by-product of printing:

• Use-by dates calculated automatically from the product and storage method

• User initials on every label

• A print log of every label and who printed it

• Expiry alerts, plus wastage reports by site

• A history of product amendments, showing what changed and when

• Reports that drill down to one site or cover a whole estate, exportable as CSV

• EHO prep labels and Natasha's Law PPDS labels on the same device

It won't write your shelf-life rules or your HACCP plan, and allergen emphasis is set by whoever builds the product. Get those right, and the device makes sure every label follows them.

Frequently asked questions

What do food safety auditors check on labels?

Auditors check that food is identifiable, in date and traceable: product name, prep or open date, use-by date, initials and, for PPDS food, a full ingredients list with emphasised allergens. They also compare labels against your written shelf-life procedures.

How far back should labelling records go? 

There's no fixed legal period. Auditors give more weight to sustained records than recent ones, so several months of consistent evidence counts for more than a system installed the week before.

Are handwritten labels acceptable at an audit?

Yes, if they're accurate, legible and complete. They become a problem when they're inconsistent between staff, illegible after a few days, or missing during busy shifts.

What's the difference between an EHO inspection and a third-party audit?

An EHO inspection is a statutory visit that decides your food hygiene rating. Third-party, client and internal audits are commissioned by a business or its clients against their own standards. Labels and records are checked across all audit types.

How do multi-site groups prepare every site for an audit? 

Run every site from one central product list, limit who can edit products, and review records from head office, so problems are flagged internally.

Make every day audit day

Labl.it comes with a 14-day free trial. Load your products, run a normal week, then pull the records and ask whether they'd satisfy an auditor. If it isn't right, return it in the prepaid box at no cost.

Start your free trial or see how Labl.it works for multi-site groups