A fridge temperature log is one of the first things an environmental health officer asks to see. It’s also one of the easiest to let slide: the readings are nearly always fine, so the sheet gets filled in at the end of the week from memory, which is worse than useless.
Free editable template · CSV
Record each unit, time, reading and person, with space for your shop’s target and action limits, corrective actions, rechecks and manager review. Set the limits and check times from your food-safety plan before using the log.
Download fridge and freezer temperature logOpen in Excel, Google Sheets or Numbers, then adapt the sample rows to your shop. No sign-up needed. Template instructions · Browse all free templates.
Use Unpickle instead of separate templates for your daily routines. Keep daily checks, stock counts, delivery records and staff procedures together in one app your whole team can use. Try Unpickle free.
What temperature should the fridge be?
In England, Wales and Northern Ireland, food that needs to be kept chilled must, by law, be kept at 8°C or below. Scotland has its own guidance, so check with Food Standards Scotland if you trade there. The usual advice is to set fridges to 5°C or below, which gives you a margin when the door is opened a lot during service. Freezers are normally kept at −18°C or colder.
How often to check
Most small businesses check every fridge and freezer at least twice a day: once when opening and once before closing. Busy kitchens with display fridges often add a mid-service check. Whatever you choose, write it into your food safety plan (such as the FSA’s Safer Food, Better Business pack) and stick to it.
What to write down
- Which fridge or freezer (give each one a name or number on the door)
- The date and time
- The temperature
- Who took the reading
- If it was too high, what you did about it
Read the fridge’s display, but check it against a probe thermometer every so often. Displays drift, and a probe in a glass of water left in the fridge gives a truer reading of what the food is experiencing.
When a reading is too high
Don’t just note it and walk away. Check the door is shut and the fridge isn’t overloaded, then re-check after a short while. If it’s still high, move food to another fridge, judge what needs to be thrown away using your food safety plan, and call for a repair. Write all of that in the log. A record that shows a problem and what you did is far better than a perfect-looking sheet.
Make it part of opening and closing
The easiest way to make sure temperatures get checked is to put them on the opening and closing checklists, rather than keeping a separate sheet that lives on the side of the fridge.
How Unpickle helps
In Unpickle, fridge checks sit on your opening and closing job lists. They appear on staff phones or the shop tablet at the right time each day and record who ticked them off and when. Ask for a photo of the display and the reading is kept with the check. Anything that wasn’t done shows up as missed, rather than being filled in later.
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