HACCP Corrective Actions Examples for Restaurants and Food Trucks

These HACCP corrective actions examples cover what a restaurant, food truck or caterer should do when a critical control point goes wrong: undercooked chicken, a stockpot that cooled too slowly, a steam table that dropped below 135°F, a walk-in that failed overnight. A corrective action is HACCP principle 5, and it is what inspectors look for when they review your logs. A log with an out-of-limit reading and no corrective action is one of the most common findings in a HACCP review.

The examples use limits from the FDA Food Code 2022. Your state may differ, and your plan is a draft for your health department to review.

What a corrective action has to do

The NACMCF HACCP principles and application guidelines describe corrective actions as procedures followed when a deviation occurs. A complete corrective action:

1. Brings the CCP back under control. Turn up the hot well, move food to a working cooler, keep cooking.
2. Decides what happens to the affected food. Continue, reheat, re-cool, hold for evaluation, or discard.
3. Finds and fixes the cause. Broken equipment, wrong procedure, a new cook who was not trained.
4. Is recorded. What happened, what was done, who did it, when.

Writing these in advance for each CCP means a cook at 9 p.m. on a Saturday does not have to make up an answer.

Cooking corrective actions

Critical limit: Food Code 3-401.11, such as 165°F for poultry, 155°F for 17 seconds for ground meat, 145°F for 15 seconds for whole-muscle meat and fish.

| Deviation | Food | Process | Cause | Record | |---|---|---|---|---| | Chicken probes at 152°F | Continue cooking until 165°F | Check fryer or oven temperature | Overloaded fryer, wrong setting, frozen product added | Cooking log note and corrective action log | | Item served before temperature checked | Contact the guest if possible, depending on circumstances | Re-check the procedure with the cook | Rush during service | Corrective action log; retraining record | | Thermometer reads wrong in calibration | Re-check any food cooked since last good calibration if possible | Replace or recalibrate thermometer | Dropped or damaged probe | Calibration log |

The most common cooking corrective action is simply "keep cooking." It still needs to be recorded, because a pattern of low readings points to an equipment or training problem.

Cooling corrective actions

Critical limits: 3-501.14, cool from 135°F to 70°F within 2 hours and to 41°F within 6 hours total; 41°F within 4 hours for food made from room temperature ingredients.

| Deviation | Food | Process | Cause | |---|---|---|---| | Above 70°F at 2 hours | Reheat to 165°F and restart cooling, or discard | Divide into shallow pans, use ice bath or blast chiller | Batch too large, pans too deep, lids on too early | | Below 70°F at 2 hours but above 41°F at 6 hours | Discard | Review cooling method and equipment | Walk-in overloaded or warm | | Cooling not recorded | Treat as unknown; discard if you cannot show it cooled in time | Retrain | Missed timer | | Food made from room temp ingredients above 41°F at 4 hours | Discard | Pre-chill ingredients | Ingredients not chilled |

The Food Code reheating option for stage 1 failures only applies if the food is above 70°F at the 2-hour mark. Once it passes 6 hours without reaching 41°F, discarding is the only option. See food cooling rules and the cooling log.

Hot holding corrective actions

Critical limit: 3-501.16, 135°F or above.

| Deviation | Food | Process | Cause | |---|---|---|---| | Below 135°F, last good reading within 2 hours | Reheat to 165°F, return to hot holding | Raise hot well temperature, add water to well, cover pans | Well not preheated, water too low, lids off | | Below 135°F, time unknown | Discard | Same, plus check checking frequency | Missed checks | | Steam table failed | Move food to working equipment or switch to time control with marked discard time, if your plan allows | Repair | Equipment fault |

Many plans use 2 hours between hot holding checks so that any drop is caught while reheating is still an option. This is a common operating choice; your plan sets it. See cold holding vs hot holding temperatures.

Cold holding corrective actions

Critical limit: 3-501.16, 41°F or below.

| Deviation | Food | Process | Cause | |---|---|---|---| | Food at 45°F, unit was at 41°F 2 hours ago | Move food to a working unit; your plan may allow continued use if the total time above 41°F is short and known | Check door seals, overload, defrost cycle | Door left open, overloaded unit | | Walk-in found at 50°F at opening, unknown time | Discard TCS food unless you can show how long it was above 41°F (data logger) | Service the unit | Compressor failure | | Make-line rail above 41°F during service | Reduce pan depth, chill pans before use, switch items to time control if plan allows | Repair or adjust | Pans overfilled, lid left open |

A continuous data logger turns many "unknown time" cases into "known time," which often saves food. See the restaurant temperature log.

Reheating corrective actions

Critical limit: 3-403.11, 165°F for 15 seconds within 2 hours for food reheated for hot holding.

| Deviation | Food | Process | |---|---|---| | Not at 165°F, under 2 hours | Continue reheating | Use smaller batches, a better heat source | | Not at 165°F at 2 hours | Discard | Never reheat in a steam table; use stove, oven or kettle |

See reheating food to 165°F.

Receiving corrective actions

| Deviation | Food | Process | |---|---|---| | Refrigerated TCS food above 41°F on arrival | Reject | Tell supplier; record | | Frozen food thawed or refrozen | Reject | Tell supplier | | Shellstock without tags | Reject | Tell supplier | | Scombroid fish above limit | Reject; histamine cannot be removed | Review supplier | | Damaged cans, swollen packages | Reject | Record |

See the receiving temperature log.

Date marking corrective actions

Critical limit: 3-501.17, use or discard ready-to-eat TCS food within 7 days at 41°F, day of preparation counted as day 1.

| Deviation | Food | Process | |---|---|---| | Item past its date | Discard | Review daily check | | Item with no label | Discard unless the prep date can be confirmed | Retrain on labeling | | Combined product with wrong date | Re-label using the earliest component date | Retrain |

See date marking under the Food Code.

Time as a public health control corrective actions

| Deviation | Food | |---|---| | Food without a discard time | Discard | | Food past its discard time | Discard | | Cold item above 70°F under the 6-hour option | Discard |

See time as a public health control.

Special process corrective actions

Sushi rice pH above limit: add more acidified vinegar mix and retest, or refrigerate and treat as TCS, or discard. See HACCP plan for sushi rice.

Sous vide or cook-chill storage above limit: evaluate time and temperature against the plan; move to the 7-day rule if allowed, or discard. See cook-chill HACCP plan.

Vacuum packaged food past 30 days: discard. See the reduced oxygen packaging HACCP plan.

Fish served raw without parasite destruction records: do not serve raw; cook to 145°F or return to the supplier.

Allergen corrective actions

| Deviation | Food | Process | |---|---|---| | Wrong item served to a guest with an allergy | Follow your emergency procedure; call emergency services if the guest has symptoms | Review the ordering and ticket process | | Cross-contact suspected | Remake the dish with clean equipment | Retrain on separation | | Label missing an allergen | Pull and relabel | Fix the recipe card |

See the food allergen control plan and FDA's food allergies page.

Sanitizer corrective actions

| Deviation | Action | |---|---| | Sanitizer below required concentration | Remake solution; re-sanitize surfaces cleaned with weak solution | | Sanitizer above label concentration | Dilute to label range | | Test strips expired | Replace strips; test again |

See sanitation SOPs for restaurants.

Employee health corrective actions

| Situation | Action | |---|---| | Worker reports vomiting or diarrhea | Exclude or restrict per the Food Code employee health rules | | Worker diagnosed with a reportable illness | Exclude and notify the health department as required | | Vomiting incident in the dining room | Follow your cleanup procedure for vomit and diarrheal events |

These are prerequisite programs, not CCPs, but they need written procedures too.

HACCP corrective actions examples written as full entries

Tables are useful for planning, but inspectors read the actual log entries. Here are five complete entries written the way a manager would record them. Each one answers the same questions: what happened, what we did with the food, what we did to the process, and why it happened.

Entry 1, cooling failure. Tuesday, 4:10 p.m. Beef chili, 4 gallon batch, cooking finished at 2:05 p.m. at 190°F. At the 2-hour check the center read 96°F in a single deep stockpot. Action on food: reheated to 172°F on the range at 4:35 p.m., divided into four 2-inch hotel pans in an ice bath, and restarted the cooling clock. Re-checked at 6:35 p.m.: 64°F. Moved to the walk-in uncovered on the top shelf. At 10:30 p.m. the closing manager recorded 39°F. Action on process: chili batches over 2 gallons are now cooled in shallow pans from the start. Cause: new prep cook did not know the cooling method. Retrained the same day, training record signed.

Entry 2, hot holding drop. Friday, 7:45 p.m. Steam table, mashed potatoes read 128°F. The 5:45 p.m. reading was 148°F. Action on food: the time below 135°F was under 2 hours, so the potatoes were reheated on the stove to 168°F and returned to a preheated well. Action on process: water level in the well was low; refilled and set a reminder at the 5 p.m. line check. Cause: water evaporated during a busy service.

Entry 3, walk-in failure. Monday, 6:30 a.m. Walk-in air at 52°F at opening. The data logger showed the unit rose above 41°F at about 1:00 a.m. Action on food: product temperatures were taken. Raw meat and dairy read 47°F to 50°F, so they had been above 41°F for about 5.5 hours. Following the plan, all TCS food was discarded and listed on a waste sheet. Action on process: refrigeration contractor called, compressor relay replaced by 11 a.m. Cause: relay failure. The logger is the reason the time could be estimated at all.

Entry 4, receiving rejection. Wednesday, 9:20 a.m. Case of raw chicken arrived at 46°F. Action on food: rejected and returned to the driver; the invoice was noted. Action on process: emailed the supplier sales rep with the reading. Cause: truck reefer unit, per the driver. This is the third warm delivery this month from the same truck, so the manager scheduled a call with the supplier.

Entry 5, date marking. Thursday, 3:00 p.m. During the line check, a container of cooked rice had no label. Action on food: discarded because the prep date could not be confirmed. Action on process: reminded the prep team that every container of ready-to-eat TCS food gets a label with the item and the prep date before it goes in the cooler. Cause: label printer out of labels; masking tape and markers placed at the station as a backup.

Notice that every entry names a cause. "Fixed it" is not a corrective action. If the cause is not addressed, the same deviation comes back next week.

Choosing between rework, hold and discard

When food misses a limit there are usually three choices.

Rework means putting the food back through a step that brings it into control, such as continuing to cook or reheating to 165°F. Rework only works when the Food Code or your approved plan allows it and the time involved is known.

Hold for evaluation is more common in manufacturing than in restaurants. Food is set aside, labeled "do not use," and a decision is made later, sometimes after asking the health department or a process authority. In a restaurant this might apply to a large batch of a specialized product, such as cured sausage that missed a pH target.

Discard is the safe default when you cannot show the food is safe. It costs money, which is why good monitoring frequency matters: checking hot holding every 2 hours instead of once per shift turns many discards into simple reheats.

Write which choice applies to each deviation in your plan. Leaving it to judgment in the moment tends to produce inconsistent decisions and a reluctance to throw food away.

Who is allowed to take corrective actions

Small kitchens often let any trained cook take a simple corrective action, like continuing to cook. Decisions to discard large amounts of food, or to use a product after a deviation, are usually reserved for the person in charge. Your plan should say who can do what. The Food Code requires a person in charge on site during operation, and that person is the natural owner of corrective actions on each shift.

Mistakes to avoid when writing corrective actions

Writing "discard" for everything. It is safe, but staff will quietly ignore a rule that throws away a full steam table for a reading of 133°F taken 20 minutes after a good one. Use the rework options the Food Code allows, and write the time conditions clearly.

Writing "notify manager" as the whole action. Notifying someone is a step, not an action. Say what the manager then does with the food and the process.

Using vague limits. "If the food is too cold" is not testable. Write "below 135°F."

Forgetting the cause. A plan that only covers the food will see the same failure again.

Not linking to records. Each corrective action should say where it gets written down. One shared corrective action log is easiest for a small kitchen.

Copying a template without checking equipment. If your plan says "move to the blast chiller" and you do not own one, the action cannot be followed.

Corrective actions on a food truck or at a catered event

Mobile and off-site operations have fewer backup options. A food truck with one small refrigerator cannot move food to another unit when it fails, so its plan may rely more on time as a public health control and on discarding. A caterer serving at a venue should bring a spare probe thermometer, a backup heat source such as canned fuel, and a cooler with ice. Write those backups into the plan so the corrective action is realistic. See the food truck HACCP plan and the catering HACCP plan.

The corrective action log

A simple layout:

| Date and time | CCP or program | What happened | Reading | Action on food | Action on process | Cause found | By | Reviewed by | |---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|

Keep it near the other logs. Managers should review it weekly to look for patterns: the same unit failing, the same shift missing checks, the same item cooling slowly.

Patterns that point to bigger problems

• Repeated cooling failures for one item: the batch size or method needs to change.
• Repeated cold holding failures in one unit: the unit needs service or replacement.
• Readings exactly at the limit every time: possible guessing. Watch a check being done.
• No corrective actions ever recorded: either everything is perfect or problems are not being written down. Inspectors notice.

Training staff on corrective actions

• Post the corrective actions for each CCP at the station.
• Walk through scenarios during training: "The chili is at 85°F at 2 hours. What do you do?"
• Make it clear that discarding food when the plan says so is the right call, not a mistake to hide.
• Record the training.

See HACCP training for restaurant staff.

Corrective actions and verification

Verification checks that corrective actions are being taken and work. A manager reviewing logs should check that every out-of-limit reading has a matching entry in the corrective action log, and that causes are being fixed. See HACCP verification and record keeping.

Build corrective actions into your plan

The HACCP builder writes a corrective action for every CCP it generates, using the Food Code options, and gives you a printable corrective action log. Try one process free or get every process with the Plan Pack. See the HACCP plan example for how corrective actions sit in a full plan. The plan is a draft for your health department to review.

Frequently asked questions

What is a corrective action in HACCP?

It is HACCP principle 5: the procedure followed when monitoring shows a critical limit was not met. NACMCF guidance says corrective actions should correct and eliminate the cause, ensure the CCP is under control, and make sure no unsafe product reaches consumers.

Do corrective actions need to be written in advance?

Yes. A HACCP plan should list a specific corrective action for each CCP so staff do not have to decide during a problem. Unexpected failures still need handling and recording.

Is discarding food always the right corrective action?

No. Sometimes food can be brought back into control, such as continuing to cook or reheating within the time allowed. When the safety of the food cannot be confirmed, discarding is the safe choice.

How long should corrective action records be kept?

As long as your plan states and your health department requires. For processes under Food Code 3-502.12, records are kept at least 6 months. Many operators keep all HACCP records 6 to 12 months.