A digital food safety management system changes where the records live and when they are asked for, and nothing about what they are. The plan is still the HACCP plan. The records are still the temperatures, the cleaning, the allergens, the traceability, the training. What changes is that the system asks for each check when it is due, judges the reading against the plan's limit, records the corrective action when it is missed, and produces the whole set for a date range in one action. The digital HACCP system guide on this site covers the category; the temperature log planner sizes the records, free.
What stays the same
The gov.uk guidance for food businesses, cited below, says a food safety management system must meet the Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point principles, and describes critical control points as the points when you need to prevent, remove or reduce a hazard in your work process. The plan, its critical control points and limits are the kitchen's own. The same guidance gives the cooking standard as 70°C for 2 minutes, or the equivalents it lists, 75°C for 30 seconds among them. A digital system that arrives with a generic plan is a folder with a login.
What the prompt changes
A missed check on paper is a blank line found on inspection day. A digital system asks for the check when it is due and shows the gap the same day, which is the difference between a system that is followed and one that is filled in on Friday.
What the limit changes
The reading is judged as it is entered, and a miss prompts the corrective action the plan wrote in advance, with who took it. The record of misses and fixes is the evidence of a working system, and it is the record paper rarely holds.
What the export changes
The inspector's third area is scored on the records for the period; producing them in one action rather than from a folder is the difference on the day. FoodDocs lists its Lite plan at $99 per site per month billed monthly or $79 billed annually, and its Standard plan at $199 per site per month, with a free 14-day trial, on its pricing page cited below. ProbeLedger Pro is $49 per month for the whole site.
Questions people ask about digital food safety management system
Do I need new hardware?
A phone or tablet in the kitchen; probes with Bluetooth are optional.
Is a digital system accepted by inspectors?
The records are what is assessed; their form is not prescribed.
What is free here?
Every tool: the plan template, the temperature log planner, the allergen matrix, the audit checklist, the traceability record, the labels planner.