EHO Inspection: How to Show Your Staff Training Records

Every operator knows the visit. The environmental health officer is fair, thorough, and sooner or later asks the question that matters: how do you know your team knows this? A drawer of certificates is part of the answer. It isn't the whole of it.

What an environmental health officer looks at

Under the Food Hygiene Rating Scheme, your rating is based on three things:

• How hygienically food is handled: preparation, cooking, cooling, storage.
• The condition of the premises: cleanliness, layout, ventilation, pest control.
• How you manage food safety: your systems, your records, and how you make sure staff know what to do.

Training lives in that third element. An officer will often ask how staff are trained and talk to staff directly. Scotland runs its own Food Hygiene Information Scheme, and local authorities differ in the detail, so check with yours.

The 14 allergens your team must know

UK businesses selling food that isn't prepacked have to be able to give customers accurate information about the 14 allergens in their dishes. The Food Standards Agency's allergen guidance sets out what that means in practice. When a guest asks, the answer comes from whoever is at the table, so that person needs to know it. Training your team on the allergens in your own dishes, and keeping a record of how each person did, shows the officer that knowledge is in place.

The ShiftTrained inspector report

One tap. One page. Every name, date and score.

• ✓ Every employee who passed, the date they passed, and their best score
• ✓ Everyone who has started but not passed yet, marked In progress
• ✓ Allergen results for each person
• ✓ What they were trained on, and where your allergen information came from
• ✓ A QR code that opens a verification page on shifttrained.com

Show it on your phone, print it, or email it to the officer from the same screen. Included on every paid plan. It is a record of the training your staff completed in ShiftTrained, not a certificate from any authority.

See how the inspector report works

What a good staff training record shows

1. Each team member's name and role.
2. What they were trained on: your menu, your allergens, your house standards.
3. The date they passed.
4. Their score.
5. Their allergen results, and where your allergen information came from.

How to keep it up to date without a folder

1. Upload your menu, plus your allergen matrix if you keep one. Photos of the pages work.
2. Send the quiz to your team. They take it on their phones, nothing to download.
3. As each person passes, the record updates with the date, the score and their allergen results.
4. When the officer arrives, tap Run inspector report and show it, print it or email it.

What ShiftTrained is, and isn't

ShiftTrained is not a food hygiene certificate course, it doesn't issue Level 2 or any other certificate, and it isn't approved by the Food Standards Agency or any local authority. It doesn't set or change your rating. What it adds is a dated record that your team knows your actual menu and allergens, kept current every time the menu changes.

More reading: how to prove your staff was trained at an inspection, and how allergen training works on ShiftTrained.