The EHP found problems at your food premises: what the person in charge must do next

The Environmental Health Practitioner has left, the report is on the counter and your stomach has dropped. You want to know what to do after an EHP inspection: what is urgent, what can wait and how to make sure the next visit goes better. As the person in charge, the next 48 hours matter more than anything you say on the day.

We sit with owners in exactly this position every month, from a takeaway in Soweto to a canteen in a Durban factory. The ones who come through it well do the same few things in the same order. Here they are.

Inspection report, compliance notice or prohibition order: know what you were given

Before you fix anything, work out what kind of document it is. The wording and forms differ between municipalities, but in practice you will get one of three things.

• An inspection report. A record of what the EHP saw, usually with findings and recommendations. It is a warning and a to do list, and it will be on file when they come back.
• A written notice with a deadline. The EHP is telling you that specific items must be corrected by a specific date. Treat the date as fixed. If you cannot meet it, phone or email the EHP before it passes, explain why and propose a new date in writing.
• A prohibition order. This is served in writing and stops the use of the premises, a facility or an activity from the moment it is served. R638 gives the local authority this power where conditions are a risk to health, and handling food against the order is an offence. Once the work is done, the person in charge asks in writing for the order to be lifted and the inspector comes back to check.

If you are not sure which one you have, phone the EHP and ask.

What to do after an EHP inspection: stop now, fix this week, plan and budget

Most reports mix serious health risks with items that are untidy but not dangerous. Put every finding into one of three groups.

1. Stop now. Anything that could make someone ill today: a fridge running warm with high risk food in it, no hot water or soap at the hand basin, signs of rodent activity in a storeroom, raw chicken stored above ready-to-eat salads. Act on these before the next service, even if it means throwing food away or closing a section.
2. Fix this week. Cleaning, missing records, a broken pedal bin, staff without hairnets, a cleaning chemical stored next to food. These are cheap and quick, and leaving them sends the wrong message.
3. Plan and budget. Structural items such as a cracked floor, a ceiling that sheds flakes, a missing wash hand basin or ventilation that cannot cope. These need a contractor, a quote and sometimes the landlord.

Write a corrective action plan the EHP can sign off

An EHP wants to see that you understood the finding and that you have a credible plan. A simple table does the job. Keep one line per finding.

Finding	Cause	Action	Owner	Due date	Evidence
Cold room above safe temperature	Door seal torn, no daily check	Replace seal, start twice daily temperature log	Kitchen manager	20 October 2026	Technician invoice, log sheets
No soap at hand basin	No one assigned to refill	Add soap and towels to opening checklist	Shift supervisor	Immediately	Signed opening checklists
Cracked floor tiles in prep area	Age, heavy trolleys	Quote, replace with sealed surface	Owner	30 November 2026	Quote, photos before and after

Real dates, real names. “Ongoing” is not a due date and “staff” is not an owner. Send the plan to the EHP by email and keep the sent copy.

Fix the cause, not the symptom: the R638 duties behind common findings

Behind almost every finding is a duty that R638 places on the person in charge. If you only fix the symptom, the same finding comes back. A few patterns we see often:

• Dirty equipment. The symptom is a greasy slicer. The cause is usually no written cleaning schedule, no one responsible and no check. Fix the schedule and the sign off, not just the slicer.
• Temperature abuse. The symptom is a warm fridge. The cause is often an overloaded unit, no daily checks or a thermometer nobody trusts. High risk foods held warm let organisms such as Salmonella, Staphylococcus aureus and Clostridium perfringens multiply.
• Poor personal hygiene. The symptom is a handler in street clothes. The cause is usually no induction, no uniform policy and a supervisor who does not correct it.
• Pests. The symptom is droppings. The cause is gaps under doors, open waste and no contract or monitoring.

Write the cause in the plan. It shows the EHP you have thought beyond the quick fix.

Brief your staff and keep the evidence

Your team needs to hear what was found and what changes, from you, within a day. A ten minute briefing before the shift is enough: what the EHP found, what each person now does differently and what a good check looks like. Have everyone sign an attendance sheet. That sheet is a training record.

Then build a folder, paper or digital, with every piece of evidence: invoices, photos with dates, completed checklists, the pest control report, training records. Organised templates make this far easier, and our Basic Food Safety Document Templates Toolkit gives you the cleaning schedules, temperature logs and training registers most small premises are missing.

A short scenario

A bakery in Gqeberha received a notice listing eleven items. The owner’s first instinct was to repaint the whole back of house. Instead, we sorted the list. Three items were urgent: a hand basin used as a storage shelf, an ant trail near the proving area and no temperature records for the cream fridge. All three were closed in two days. Six were cleaning and record items, closed within the week. Two were structural and went into a costed plan with the landlord. When the EHP returned, the owner handed over a single file with the plan, photos and two weeks of signed logs. The follow up took twenty minutes.

Getting ready for the follow up inspection

Do not wait for the EHP to arrive. A week before the expected date, walk the premises yourself with the original report in hand.

• Check every finding against the plan and mark it closed, in progress or overdue.
• Confirm the records are complete and signed, with no gaps and no entries written up after the fact.
• Make sure the person in charge on duty knows where the folder is and can explain each action.
• Look at the areas that were not written up. A returning EHP looks at the whole premises.

An independent food hygiene audit before the follow up visit is useful if you are unsure, because a second pair of eyes catches what you have stopped seeing.

When the finding is really a training gap

Read your findings again and ask a blunt question: did this happen because nobody knew what good looks like? Very often the answer is yes. R638 requires the person in charge to make sure food handlers are trained in food hygiene, and the person in charge needs proper training too. An EHP who sees repeated basic failures will usually ask to see those training records.

If you have never had formal training yourself, the Persons in Charge (R638) course covers your legal duties, how to run checks and how to deal with inspections. It is SAATCA registered and HPCSA CPD accredited, and you get a certificate you can put in the folder.

What to do this week

• Confirm in writing which document you received and the deadline.
• Close every “stop now” item before the next service.
• Send a dated corrective action plan with named owners to the EHP.
• Brief all staff and keep the signed attendance sheet.
• Start the evidence folder and add to it daily.
• Book your own person in charge training if you do not have a certificate.

Frequently asked questions

Can I argue with a finding I think is wrong?

Yes, but do it calmly and in writing, with evidence such as a calibrated thermometer reading or a pest control report. Keep fixing the findings you agree with while you raise the one you do not.

Will one bad inspection cost me my Certificate of Acceptability?

Not usually, if you respond properly and close the findings. Repeated failures, or ignoring a notice, put you in a much weaker position. A prohibition order is more serious: under R638 the certificate lapses while the prohibition is in force, and a prohibition that is never lifted can end it permanently. Our Certificate of Acceptability guide explains what the certificate depends on.

How long do I have to fix structural problems?

That is set by the EHP on the notice or agreed with them, and it varies. If a contractor or landlord delay puts the date at risk, tell the EHP early and give them a revised date with the quote attached.