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Free food safety checklist for cafes, delis & bakeries

A printable daily food-safety checklist covering opening, closing and cleaning checks, plus your fridge and freezer temperatures — with the safe limits already filled in for your area. Print it for the wall, or run the same checks on your team's phones with ProCafe.

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Putting this into practice in New Zealand

Build your routines around the food control plan or national programme that applies to your New Zealand business. For cafes using MPI's Simply Safe & Suitable template, the selected cards and your registered activities determine the work. Keep the completed checks and supporting methods ready for your verifier.

MPI: using a Simply Safe & Suitable food control plan
  1. Capture delivery and food-process observations when those activities happen. A daily completion status does not replace the record for an individual cooking, cooling or reheating process.
  2. Review missed checks and what happened when something went wrong. Keep the action and supporting evidence accessible for the verifier, including changes made after the last verification.

ProCafe · Free template

Daily food safety checklist

A checklist for every shift

Before opening, check equipment, chilled storage, handwashing supplies and the day's food preparation. At closing, complete cleaning, check food is labelled and stored correctly, and hand over unresolved faults or missing checks with a named owner. Adapt the tasks below to your site. This daily sheet is separate from a checklist for opening a new business.

Site: Date: Checked by:

Opening checks

  • Fridges and freezers running correctly
  • Probe thermometer working and sanitised
  • Hand wash basin stocked with soap and paper towels
  • Allergen information available and up to date
  • Chilled food / fridge temperature — 5 °C or below(≤ 5 °C)

Fridge & freezer temperatures

  • Chilled food / fridge temperature — 5 °C or below(≤ 5 °C)
  • Freezer temperature — editable storage target −18 °C(≤ -18 °C)
  • Frozen food remains frozen solid

Cleaning

  • Area cleaned and sanitised
  • Product used
  • Contact time followed

Closing checks

  • Hot holding switched off and food cooled correctly
  • Surfaces and equipment cleaned and sanitised
  • Waste removed and bins cleaned
  • Fridges and freezers running correctly

Tick each check once done, and record temperatures where shown. Keep the completed sheet on file.

Questions

Common questions

What should be on a daily food safety checklist for a cafe?
At a minimum: opening checks that everything is working and stocked, fridge and freezer temperatures, safe cooking/cooling/reheating where you handle hot food, cleaning, and closing checks. This template covers the daily opening, temperature, cleaning and closing checks a small cafe, deli or bakery needs.
Is this food safety checklist suitable for my country's rules?
The checks here are the everyday good-practice checks common to most food-safety schemes, and the temperature limits shown are set for your area. Your local authority's guidance always has the final say — this is a starting point you can adapt, not a substitute for it.
Is the checklist free?
Yes — print it and use it every day at no cost. If paper checklists keep going missing, ProCafe runs the same checks on your team's phones, records who did them and when, and keeps everything ready for an inspection. Free for 14 days, no card required.
How do I prove to an inspector that the checks were done?
With paper you keep the signed sheets on file. ProCafe keeps a time-stamped, tamper-evident history automatically and lets you export it as a PDF or spreadsheet — so when an inspector asks, the proof is a couple of taps away.

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