How to write a cleaning schedule for a commercial kitchen that an EHP will accept

The EHP looks at the sheet on the wall that says “Clean kitchen: daily” with a neat row of ticks, and asks which surfaces, with what chemical, at what dilution, and who checked. If nobody can answer, the ticks mean nothing. This guide shows you how to write a cleaning schedule for a commercial kitchen that answers those questions before they are asked, built from a walk around your own floor.

What R638 expects of cleaning in food premises

R638 places the responsibility for clean, hygienic premises on the person in charge. The regulations expect surfaces, equipment and utensils that come into contact with food to be kept clean and, where needed, disinfected, and the premises as a whole to be kept in a condition that does not contaminate food. They also expect cleaning chemicals to be kept where they cannot contaminate food, and food handlers to be trained. Our R638 explained page sets out the full scope of the regulations.

What R638 does not do is hand you a schedule. It describes the outcome. The schedule is your proof that you have planned how to reach that outcome every day and that someone checks it. When an environmental health practitioner (EHP) inspects, or when you apply for your Certificate of Acceptability, a written schedule backed by signed records is one of the clearest ways to show control.

Walk the kitchen first: list every surface and item

Do not write the schedule at a desk. Take a clipboard and walk the kitchen in the order food moves: receiving, dry store, cold rooms, preparation, cooking, service, wash up and the refuse area. Write down every surface and item you see.

Group the items so the schedule is easy to read on a busy shift:

• Food contact surfaces: cutting boards, preparation tables, slicers, mixers, mincers, blenders, food containers, utensils and probe thermometers.
• Cooking equipment: stoves, ovens, fryers, griddles, salamanders, combi ovens, extraction canopies and filters.
• Cold storage: fridges, freezers, walk-in cold rooms, door seals and shelving.
• Structure: floors, drains, walls, ceilings, light diffusers, doors, windows and fly screens.
• Hand wash and wash up: hand wash basins, soap and paper towel dispensers, pot wash sinks and the dishwasher.
• Support areas: the bin area, staff toilets and the change room.

Hand contact points are the items we see missed most often on audits: fridge handles, tap handles, light switches and the screen at the pass. Put them on the list by name.

Frequency: after use, daily, weekly and deep clean

For each item, decide how often it needs cleaning. Base the decision on how closely it touches food, how quickly soil builds up and what happens if it is missed.

Frequency	Typical items	Why
After each use or change of task	Cutting boards, slicers, preparation tables, utensils, probe thermometers	Direct food contact and the risk of carrying raw food contamination to ready-to-eat food
End of each shift or day	Floors, stoves, griddles, sinks, hand wash basins, bins, door handles	Soil and grease build up during service
Weekly	Fridge interiors and seals, shelving, walls to head height, drains, canopy filters	Slower build up, but a home for mould and pests if missed
Monthly or quarterly deep clean	Behind and under equipment, ceilings, light fittings, cold room evaporators, extraction ducting	Hidden areas where grease and pests collect

Adjust the band to what you see, not to what looks tidy on paper. A slicer used for raw meat and then for cooked ham must be cleaned and sanitised between the two, not at the end of the day. That is exactly how Listeria monocytogenes and Salmonella move from raw to ready-to-eat food. Write “after each use” against it.

Method, chemical and dilution for each item

“Clean the fryer” is not a method. A good schedule tells a new staff member exactly what to do. For each line, set out:

1. Preparation: switch off, isolate, let it cool and remove loose parts.
2. Remove loose soil: scrape, sweep or rinse.
3. Wash: the detergent by its product name, the dilution from the supplier’s label and the tool to use (colour coded cloth, brush or scourer).
4. Rinse with clean water.
5. Sanitise if it is a food contact surface: the product name, dilution and contact time from the label.
6. Rinse again if the label requires it, then air dry.
7. Reassemble and check.

Take dilutions and contact times from the product label or the supplier’s technical data sheet, never from memory. Then make the correct dilution easy to achieve: a wall mounted dosing unit, or a marked measuring jug and a marked bucket or spray bottle. Pouring by eye gives a solution that is too weak to work or strong enough to leave residue.

For complex equipment such as the slicer or combi oven, use a numbered one page method card and reference it on the schedule.

Cleaning, sanitising and the two stage clean

Cleaning removes dirt, grease and food residue. Sanitising reduces the microorganisms on a surface that is already clean to a safe level. You cannot sanitise a dirty surface: grease and food residue shield bacteria and use up the sanitiser before it reaches them.

That is why food contact surfaces get a two stage clean. First wash with detergent and rinse, then apply sanitiser for the full contact time on the label. A combined detergent sanitiser has its place for light soiling, but on a greasy board after portioning chicken, two stages is the safe default. Raw chicken commonly carries Campylobacter and Salmonella, and a quick spray of sanitiser over fat and blood does very little.

Who does it, who checks it and how it is signed

Every line needs a role. “Kitchen staff” is not an owner. Use roles that exist on your roster: “grill chef, end of shift”, “scullery, after service”, “closing supervisor”. Then add a column for the person who verifies the work.

Verification means someone other than the cleaner looks at the item and signs. Visual checks are the minimum: no visible soil, no grease film, no food residue in corners, seals or joints, and no bad smell. Run a white paper towel along the underside of a preparation table edge or inside a fridge door seal. Some kitchens add ATP swabs, which give a quick reading of organic residue on food contact surfaces.

A worked example from a canteen in Durban

A factory canteen in Durban feeding a few hundred staff a day had a cleaning schedule with one line per area and a single signature at the end of each day. The EHP found grease behind the fryers and mould on the cold room door seal, both of which had been signed off as clean. When we rewrote the schedule, the kitchen was split into 72 items. Each item got a frequency, a method card number, a chemical and dilution, a responsible role and a verifier. The supervisor’s sign off changed from “kitchen clean” to a short walk of the after use and daily items with a checklist. At the follow up inspection the findings were closed.

Keep completed schedules on file. Signed records are what show an inspector that the schedule is used and not just printed. If you want a ready layout to start from, the Basic Food Safety Document Templates Toolkit (TK11) gives you editable templates you can adapt to your own item list.

Chemical storage, safety data sheets and training

• Store cleaning chemicals in a dedicated store or lockable cupboard away from food, packaging and preparation areas.
• Keep chemicals in their original labelled containers. Never decant into cooldrink bottles or unlabelled containers.
• Keep a current safety data sheet (SDS) for every chemical on site, filed where staff can reach it quickly.
• Provide the protective equipment the SDS calls for, such as gloves and eye protection.

Training ties the whole system together. R638 requires the person in charge to make sure food handlers are trained in food hygiene and to be trained themselves. Train each staff member on the methods for the items they own, sign the training record, and train again when a chemical or supplier changes. Our Food Safety Practices for Persons in Charge of Food Premises (R638) course covers the person in charge’s full set of duties, including cleaning, pest control and staff training, so you can set up the system and defend it at inspection.

What to do this week

• Walk the kitchen with a clipboard and list every surface and item, including hand contact points.
• Give each item a frequency using the four bands above.
• Collect the label or technical sheet for every chemical and write the dilution and contact time into the schedule.
• Put a role, not “staff”, against every line and add a verifier column.
• Check that you hold a current SDS for every chemical and that the chemical store is apart from food.