Food safetyfor takeaways.
Lemon keeps a takeaway's food safety records on a phone by the pass: cook, cool, reheat and hot-hold checks, fridge and freezer rounds, deliveries and the close-down. Every record has a name and a time.
What records does a takeaway need to keep?
Every UK takeaway needs food safety procedures based on HACCP principles, and records that show the team follows them. Most use a ready-made pack: Safer Food, Better Business in England and Wales, CookSafe in Scotland or Safe Catering in Northern Ireland.
Day to day, a takeaway's records come down to these seven.
| Record | What it shows | In Lemon |
|---|---|---|
| Cook, cool, reheat and hot-hold | The core temperature of the food at each step, and who probed it. | Food checks |
| Fridge and freezer temperatures | Chilled and frozen food stayed cold, checked at least once a day. | Temperature logs |
| Problems and what you did | What went wrong, what the team did about it, and whether food was affected. | Issue reports |
| Deliveries | Supplier, arrival temperature, use-by and condition of each delivery. | Deliveries |
| Cleaning and closing checks | The line, the fryers and the walk-in were cleaned and shut down, and who did it. | Checklists |
| Allergen information | Which of the 14 allergens each dish contains, for whoever takes the order. | Allergen matrix |
| Staff training | Who has been trained in food safety, and when. | Staff training |
Probe checks, targets on screen.
Tap Cook, Cool, Reheat or Hot-hold, type the dish and the reading, and save. Each button shows its target: core 75°C to cook, 82°C to reheat, 63°C to hold, 8°C within 90 minutes to cool.
Lemon records the number you probed beside that target, with the cook's name and the time. Work to the temperatures in your own safe methods.
Food checks, step by step
Walk-in checks, with the fix on file.
Every fridge, freezer and hot-hold cabinet is a unit with its own range, checked in a morning and an afternoon round.
A reading out of range is flagged as you type, and saving it opens an issue: what was wrong, what you did, whether food was affected. It stays on Today until an owner or manager resolves it.
How temperature logs work
Closing checks, signed by the closer.
Switch on Closing Checks and rewrite it as the close you want: fryers off and oil filtered, boards sanitised, floors done, bins out, walk-in door shut.
A No asks for a note, so a split door seal is written down at midnight, not found at morning prep. Weekly Deep Clean and Probe Calibration are in the same library.
How checklists workExample dish
A Friday batch of chicken curry.
Each check the batch passes through, and what the owner sees on Monday. Names and readings are made up.
- 14:00
Goods in
The chicken arrives on the chilled van. Dev logs 4°C on the probe, use-by checked, good condition.
- 15:30
Cook
Dev probes the thickest piece: 78°C. Cook, chicken curry, 78, save.
- 16:50
Cool
Half the batch goes into shallow trays and is probed at 7°C. With the 15:30 check, the times show it cooled inside 90 minutes.
- 19:15
Hot-hold through service
The bain-marie is probed mid-service at 71°C and logged as Hot-hold.
- 22:50
The walk-in reads 9°C
Lemon flags it while Nadia types. The issue records the split door seal, the stock moved to the back-up fridge, and what happened to the cooled curry.
- 23:30
Close
Closing Checks, line by line, under Nadia's name. The walk-in issue stays open until the owner resolves it.
What the owner sees on Monday
- The curry's day: delivery, cook, cool and hot-hold, each named and timed
- Friday's walk-in issue, what was done and who resolved it
- Every close-down, line by line
- A month view marking each day recorded, missing records or open issue
Export any range of dates as one PDF, with temperature logs, issues, deliveries and checklists.
See a sample reportDark kitchens
Food safety in a dark kitchen.
A dark kitchen is a food business like any other: registered with the local authority, inspected and given a hygiene rating. What changes is the day: no front of house, every order out through a courier, often several brands from the same fridges.
One location per kitchen, not per brand.
Fridges, probes and cleaning belong to the premises. If three brands cook on one line, set up one Lemon location for that kitchen, at £19 per location per month.
Your records stay yours.
On a shared site, nobody sees your records unless you invite them to your team, the site operator included.
The order tablet is not a food safety record.
It shows what sold, not the temperature it left at. Keep hot-hold and reheat checks in Lemon through service, whichever app the order came from.
The trip to the customer is outside Lemon.
FSA guidance expects hot food kept hot and cold food kept cold on the way, with allergen information at order and delivery. Cover it in your own safe methods.
What Lemon does not do for a takeaway.
- It does not record the trip to the customer.Deliveries in Lemon are goods arriving at your back door, not orders going out.
- It does not update ordering apps.Change allergen details on each platform yourself when a recipe changes.
- It does not let you move the rounds.The day splits at noon, with reminders at 08:00 and 17:00. If nobody is in before noon, the morning round shows as missing.
- It does not write your HACCP plan or SFBB pack.The safe methods, or your CookSafe system in Scotland, stay yours.
- It does not read probes or sensors.
Takeaway questions,
answered.
Something else on your mind?hi@getlemon.app
Does a takeaway need a HACCP plan?
A takeaway needs food safety procedures based on HACCP principles, written down and followed. For most takeaways that means a ready-made pack such as Safer Food, Better Business, or CookSafe in Scotland. Lemon keeps the daily records the pack asks for. It does not write the pack.
What temperature should hot food be held at?
Hot food must be kept at 63°C or above if you are not serving it straight away. Lemon's Hot-hold button shows 63°C as the target and records the reading you probe, with your name and the time.
Is there time to record checks during a rush?
A food check is a button, a dish and a number, taken when you would probe anyway. The fridge round is one unit at a time on a keypad, and the iPhone and Android apps remind the team at 08:00 and 17:00. Nothing needs typing up afterwards.
Do we need a probe that connects to the app?
No. Use the probe you have and type the number. Lemon does not connect to probes or sensors. Probe Calibration in the checklist library is a regular check on the probe itself.
Does Lemon update allergens on Deliveroo, Uber Eats or Just Eat?
No. Lemon does not connect to ordering platforms. The allergen matrix gives whoever answers the phone or the counter the answer your team entered, with who confirmed it and when. Update each platform yourself.
Does Lemon work where the signal is poor?
Temperature readings, food checks, deliveries and issue reports are saved on the phone first and sent when the connection returns, even if the app is closed in the meantime. Checklists still need a connection, so run them where the phone has signal.
Something else on your mind?hi@getlemon.app
Keep reading.
HACCP corrective-action examples for UK kitchensWhat to write when a fridge, a cook or a hot-hold fails.- SFBB, CookSafe, Safe Catering or MyHACCP? Choose the right UK packWhich official pack applies to your nation and your business.
- Restaurant delivery checklist UKWhat to check and record when goods arrive at the back door.
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Then £19 per location per month. Every fridge, every team member, staff training included.
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