What's new in Lemon: October 2026

Since we announced staff training on 2 October, Lemon has changed in ways you will notice every day: training moved into the app, three new courses arrived, and readings now save without signal. Here is the whole list, with a link to the help page for each.

At a glance

• Training runs in the Lemon app. Owners and managers assign courses and follow progress from the Training tile.
• Six courses, now including fire safety, first aid awareness and supervising food safety.
• Readings save without signal and send when the connection returns.
• Pause Recordings marks the days you are closed, so they are not counted as missing records.
• Photos on issue reports, up to three per issue.
• Allergens: a "may contain" list, A to Z sorting and search.
• A clearer report with food checks, missed checks and closures.
• Smaller changes: iPad, invoice numbers on deliveries, a later morning reminder and updates that install while the app is open.

Staff training now runs in the Lemon app

You no longer need a separate website for training. Open the Lemon app, tap Training on the Today screen, and you see your team: whose training is in progress, who is overdue and who has passed. Tap Assign training, pick a course, tick the people and choose a date to finish by. It works on iPhone, iPad, Android and the web, with the login your team already has.

Each person's page lists their courses, with Share certificate for each one they have passed, and the share button at the top sends the team's training records as a spreadsheet. Workplace checks are no longer part of new assignments. See Assign a course and Check training progress.

Six courses, from food hygiene to first aid

• Food hygiene essentials, for food handlers. The everyday habits behind safe food, from storage and preparation to cleaning and personal hygiene.
• Allergen awareness, for kitchen and front-of-house teams. Handle customer questions with care. Understand allergens, clear communication and preventing cross-contact.
• Food safety management, for managers and supervisors. Put HACCP-based food safety into practice, with SFBB and CookSafe editions for your location.
• Fire safety awareness, for kitchen and front-of-house teams. Prevent kitchen fires, raise the alarm and help customers leave safely, with editions for England and Wales and for Scotland.
• First aid awareness, for everyone on shift. Get help fast, then know what to do for burns, cuts, choking, collapse and allergic reactions. It does not make someone a workplace first aider.
• Supervising food safety, for head chefs, managers and shift leaders. Run food safety shift by shift: the law, HACCP-based controls, allergens, cleaning, pests and what to do when something goes wrong.

Kitchens in Scotland get the Scottish editions of food safety management and fire safety automatically. Every course ends with an assessment and a completion certificate, which is a record of the course, not an accredited qualification. More on the staff training page.

Readings save without signal

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 between. That covers the basement walk-in, the marquee and the festival pitch. Checklists still need a connection, and so does signing in on a phone for the first time. See Fridge temperatures.

Pause Recordings for closed days and holidays

Closed every Monday, or away for two weeks in August? In Settings → Pause Recordings, an owner or manager ticks the days you always close, or adds a one-off closure with a reason such as Annual holiday.

Those days show as closed on the monthly overview instead of as missing records, the day itself says why, and your exported report opens with a Closures section, so an inspector reads the gap as explained. You can still record on a closed day. See Pause Recordings.

Photos on issue reports

When a fridge runs warm or something goes wrong, tap Add photo on the issue report and add up to three photos from the camera or your photo library. They show on the issue and in the PDF report as photo evidence, and they wait on the phone like everything else when there is no signal.

See Issues and corrective actions.

Allergen matrix: may contain, A to Z and search

• Each dish now has an optional May contain list for the cross-contact risks your allergen assessment found, kept apart from what the dish contains. The PDF marks them C and M.
• Sort A to Z puts the dish list in alphabetical order in one tap.
• From six dishes, a search field helps whoever is on shift find a dish during service.

See Allergen matrix or the allergen matrix page.

A clearer inspection report

The PDF you hand an inspector was rebuilt. It now includes your food checks (cooking, cooling, reheating and hot holding against their targets), lists every fridge check that was due and missed, shows closures and issue photos, and prints every time in your kitchen's own time zone. See Export a report, or open a sample report.

Smaller changes

• iPad. The iPhone app now runs properly on iPad.
• Deliveries. The products field also takes the invoice number.
• Reminders. The morning reminder moved to 10:00; the evening one stays at 17:00. See Reminders.
• Updates. Lemon installs updates while the app is open, with a short "Updating lemon" screen, and the version number is at the bottom of Settings.
• Sign-in. Password managers now fill in your Lemon password properly.

How to get the update

Most of this is already on your phone: Lemon updates itself while the app is open, and the web app at app.getlemon.app is always current. Photos on issue reports and the iPad layout need version 5.2.0, so if you do not see them, update Lemon from the App Store or Google Play.

Questions