How to write a HACCP plan for a restaurant

Step 1: What exactly does the plan need to cover?

Start with the reason you're writing it. If it's for sous vide, the plan covers the foods you bag and hold, not your whole menu. Write one sentence of scope: "Sous vide chicken thighs and pork belly, packaged, cooked, chilled and held up to 7 days." If you aren't sure you need one, read when a HACCP plan is required first.

Step 2: Who is on the team and who signs?

Name the person in charge, the certified food protection manager and whoever runs the process on each shift. Add the permit number and address. This becomes the cover page, and the inspector's first question is usually who they should talk to.

Step 3: How do I draw the flow diagram?

Walk the food from the back door to the plate and write each step as a numbered line: receive, cold store, prep, package, cook, chill, hold, reheat, serve. A list is fine. Then walk the kitchen with the list in hand and fix anything that doesn't match.

Step 4: How do I do the hazard analysis?

For each step, ask what biological, chemical or physical hazard could get in, survive or grow there, and whether it's likely and serious enough to control. Write the reason. "Cool: C. perfringens spores survive cooking and grow between 135°F and 41°F. Significant."

Step 5: Which steps are critical control points?

A step is a CCP when it's where you control a significant hazard and nothing later will fix it. In a restaurant that's almost always cooking, cooling, cold holding of packaged food and reheating. Use the four-question decision tree in our restaurant HACCP plan guide if a step feels borderline.

Step 6: What critical limits should I use?

Numbers from the Food Code, with the section beside each one: 165°F for poultry (§3-401.11), 135°F to 70°F in 2 hours and to 41°F within 6 hours total (§3-501.14), 41°F or below for cold holding (§3-501.16). For anything below those cook limits, you'll need a variance and data to back it.

Step 7: How do I write monitoring and corrective actions?

Monitoring answers what, how, how often and who: "Line cook probes the thickest bag at end of cook, every batch, records on the temperature log." Corrective actions cover the food and the cause: "Keep cooking until 165°F. If the bath was under temperature, check the circulator before the next batch." Pick frequencies you can keep on your busiest night.

Step 8: How do I verify, keep records and sign off?

Say who reviews the logs and how often (weekly is common), how thermometers are calibrated (ice water, 32°F), which logs you keep and for how long (at least 6 months for ROP under §3-502.12), and when the plan is reviewed: yearly and after any menu, recipe or equipment change. Add a signature and date table. Then send it to your health department before you start the process, as §8-201.13(B) expects.

Can I skip the blank page?

Yes. The HACCP plan builder asks about your kitchen and processes, then writes steps 3 to 8 with the Food Code limits filled in and cited. You review it, fill the gaps it flags and export it to Word.