As of 13 August 2026, AI cannot create a HACCP plan for your UK food business.

What to actually do

1. Hand it to a person

   The route this page recommends

   Someone with a licence or accountable authority has to sign this before it counts.

2. Use a tool built for this

   Second choice

3. Do it yourself

   The distant third

   A chat interface gets you a draft, but you cannot verify it yourself. That is the catch.

   How to actually do it

   1. Open GOV.UK food safety guidance and gather any current guidance that applies to your business, then save the relevant links or documents with your working notes.
   2. Gather your current menu, recipes, ingredient and allergen information, supplier details, premises layout, equipment list, cleaning schedule, staff procedures and existing temperature or delivery records.
   3. Write the actual process for each product from delivery through storage, preparation, cooking, cooling, holding, service, delivery and disposal, including measured times and temperatures where you have them.
   4. Paste the gathered information into the prompt and ask the chatbot to produce the draft HACCP plan, keeping every unknown as [INPUT NEEDED] or [VALIDATION NEEDED].
   5. Compare the draft's products, process steps, allergens, equipment and proposed controls against your premises and records, correcting factual errors and filling only gaps you can evidence.
   6. Send the draft, source records and unresolved questions to a qualified food safety consultant or your local authority environmental health team for an on-site check, then record their required changes and approval before using the plan.
   7. Put the approved monitoring sheets and corrective-action records into daily use, and update the plan whenever a product, ingredient, supplier, process, premises or piece of equipment changes.

   Prompt

   Create a draft HACCP plan for this UK food business using only the information supplied below. Do not invent ingredients, temperatures, shelf lives, cooking times, supplier controls, equipment, hazards or legal requirements. Mark every missing fact as [INPUT NEEDED]. Do not claim that the business is compliant and do not replace an on-site food safety assessment.
   
   Business type: [for example, cafe, bakery, takeaway, manufacturer]
   Premises and work areas: [describe the layout and relevant areas]
   Products and menu: [list every product or dish]
   Ingredients and allergens: [list ingredients, suppliers if relevant, and known or possible allergens]
   Process for each product: [receiving, storage, preparation, cooking, cooling, reheating, hot holding, cold holding, service, delivery and cleaning steps as applicable]
   Equipment: [list relevant equipment and its controls]
   Current temperatures and times: [provide measured values and how they are measured]
   Cleaning and disinfection: [products, methods, frequency and responsible person]
   Pest control, waste and maintenance: [current arrangements]
   Staff practices and training: [describe them]
   Packaging, transport and shelf life: [describe them if relevant]
   Existing records or procedures: [paste them here]
   
   Produce the draft in this order:
   1. Scope, product description and intended use.
   2. A clear process flow for each product or product group.
   3. A hazard analysis covering biological, chemical, physical and allergen hazards at each relevant step, with the proposed control measure and the evidence or missing information needed.
   4. Proposed critical control points, explaining why each is or is not a critical control point.
   5. Critical limits, monitoring method, frequency, responsible role and corrective action. Use [VALIDATION NEEDED] instead of guessing any limit.
   6. Verification, validation, review and record-keeping procedures.
   7. Prerequisite controls covering personal hygiene, cleaning, pest control, supplier approval, maintenance, waste, traceability, allergen management and staff training.
   8. A list of unresolved questions and a list of documents or measurements a food safety professional must check on site.
   
   Use plain British English and tables where useful. Keep the draft specific to the supplied business. State clearly which sections are drafts and require approval by a competent food safety person before use.

   Open it prefilled in ChatGPT or Claude, or copy it into Gemini, which takes no prefill link.