Cold chain temperature records that hold up
Why temperature records need numbers rather than ticks, what a defensible reading looks like, and how to handle an out-of-range result.
This is a plain-English explainer, not legal advice. The authority on this topic is the Food Standards Agency. Rules change — check the current official guidance before relying on it.
Temperature control is the most heavily evidenced part of food safety, and the part most often recorded in a way that proves nothing.
A fridge log of ticks says somebody looked. It doesn't say what they saw, so it can't show the unit was in range, and it cannot show the drift that preceded a failure.
What a defensible record contains
- A number, not a tick
- The unit or location the reading came from
- Who took it, from their own account
- When, timestamped at the point of work
- What happened if it was out of range
The fifth is the one that matters most and is present least. Plenty of businesses can show a problem was found. Far fewer can show what was done about it without reconstructing the answer from memory.
Reading distribution is the tell
A month of readings that are all exactly 4°C is less credible than a month varying between 2.8°C and 5.1°C. Real refrigeration cycles; a defrost shows up. Identical readings suggest a number being written rather than measured.
This is also why a run of readings is operationally useful and a run of ticks is not. A unit drifting upward over three weeks is visible in the numbers well before it fails, which turns a stock write-off into a service call.
Handling an out-of-range reading
Decide the response in advance: that's principle 5 of HACCP, and make the record capture it:
- Record the actual reading
- Record the action: moved stock, adjusted, called an engineer, discarded
- Record who was informed
- Re-check and record the result
A follow-up that appears only when the answer was out of range keeps the routine short on normal days and thorough on the day it matters.
Probes and calibration
A reading is only as good as the probe. Probes should be checked periodically against a known reference, and that check is itself a record worth keeping: an uncalibrated probe means every reading it produced is questionable, which is a bad thing to discover during an investigation.
Common questions
- What temperature should a commercial fridge be kept at?
- Chilled food in the UK is generally kept at 8°C or below by law, and most businesses run fridges at 5°C or below to leave a working margin. Your own critical limit should be set in your food safety management system and recorded as a number each time it is checked, so a breach is visible.
- How often should fridge temperatures be recorded?
- Commonly at least twice a day, typically at opening and close, though the frequency should follow your risk assessment and food safety management system. What matters as much as frequency is that each check records an actual reading and that an out-of-range result triggers a recorded corrective action.
- Why are ticks not acceptable on a temperature log?
- A tick records that somebody looked, not what they saw, so it cannot demonstrate the unit was in range and cannot show drift before a failure. A run of numbers shows a unit warming over three weeks; a run of ticks shows nothing until stock is lost.
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