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Cleaning schedule

The Cleaning Schedule is your SFBB Section 10 record - what gets cleaned, how often, with which chemical, and the PPE the person doing it should wear. It is the page an Environmental Health Officer turns to when they want to see that you are not just cleaning when something looks dirty, but running a documented cleaning programme that covers the equipment, surfaces, and high-touch areas in your kitchen.

You will find it at /safety/cleaning-schedule.

Why this is in your EHO pack​

The Safer Food Better Business pack expects every caterer to keep a cleaning schedule. The reason is straightforward - cleaning is one of the four Cs (cross-contamination, cleaning, chilling, cooking) the FSA judges your food safety on, and "we just clean as we go" is not enough on a visit. The schedule is the structured list that shows you have thought through every surface and every piece of equipment, decided how often each needs cleaning, and matched the right chemical and PPE to the job.

The Cleaning Schedule renders as Section 10 of your EHO report pack, grouped by frequency, with the chemical name and PPE chips printed alongside each item.

What you can record​

Each cleaning item has:

  • Item - what gets cleaned (for example, Coffee machine grouphead, Walk-in fridge handles, Pass shelf).
  • Frequency - how often, picked from the canonical SFBB list below or Other with a custom label.
  • Applies to - either All locations or pinned to a specific site.
  • Linked chemical - the COSHH chemical used for the job, picked from your COSHH register. Optional - some jobs only need water and a clean cloth.
  • PPE - which of the curated PPE codes (gloves, apron, goggles, mask) plus an Other escape hatch with a custom label.
  • Method steps - up to twenty short steps describing how to do the job. Optional, but helpful for staff who are new to a piece of equipment.
  • Notes - free text for anything that does not fit the structured fields.

The frequency options​

The dropdown lists six predefined frequencies that group consistently in the EHO PDF:

  1. After use - cleaned every time the item has been used (probes, blenders, prep boards).
  2. Every shift - cleaned at the end of each service (cutting boards, knife magnets, splash zones).
  3. Daily - cleaned at least once a day (floors, bins, hand-wash sinks).
  4. Weekly - cleaned weekly (extractor filters, walk-in shelving, oven interiors).
  5. Monthly - cleaned monthly (under heavy equipment, behind fridges, light fittings).
  6. Other - any cadence outside the standard list, with a custom label like Quarterly, after deep clean or Every 6 weeks.

The first five cover the cadences SFBB itself uses. Other is the escape hatch for anything that does not fit, and prompts you for a one-line label so the EHO PDF reads Quarterly rather than just Other.

Linking a chemical from your COSHH register​

When you add a cleaning item, you can pin it to a chemical from your COSHH register. This does two things:

  • The chemical name prints alongside the item in your EHO report, so the auditor can see which sanitiser, degreaser, or disinfectant is being used for which job.
  • SafetyBrik suggests PPE based on what the chemical's data sheet recommends. If your sanitiser's COSHH record says gloves and goggles required, ticking the chemical pre-ticks gloves and goggles on the cleaning item. You can adjust the suggestion before saving - the toast that fires when auto-fill happens lists exactly which codes were added.

A cleaning item without a linked chemical (water-only jobs, brushing, dry wiping) is fine - leave the chemical field empty.

Why PPE is suggested, not enforced

The chemical's COSHH data sheet is the authoritative source on what PPE is needed to handle that chemical. But the PPE for a cleaning task sometimes differs - you might wear goggles when decanting a strong concentrate but skip them for a diluted spray. SafetyBrik suggests so you do not have to retype the obvious, and lets you adjust because the cleaning task knows best.

Pinning to a location​

Most cleaning items apply to every site you run. Leave Applies to as All locations in those cases.

Pin a cleaning item to a specific location when:

  • The equipment only exists at one site (a deck oven at the bakery, a juicer at one cafe).
  • The cleaning regime differs by site (different sanitisers, different frequencies because of usage volume).
  • A site has a specific local issue (drains that need extra attention, an extractor that runs longer hours).

When you filter the list by location, you will see All locations items plus the items pinned to the site you have selected. Items pinned to a different site stay hidden.

Method steps​

You can record up to twenty short method steps per cleaning item. Each step is up to 500 characters - enough for a sentence or two, not a full page. Steps render numbered in the EHO PDF, and double as a quick how-to for new staff.

Method steps are optional. If the item is obvious (Wipe table with sanitiser spray) you can leave them blank. They are most useful for equipment that has a specific routine - the [Coffee machine grouphead] backflush sequence, the [Slicer] strip-down for weekly clean, the [Combi oven] descaling cycle.

Where the data comes from​

Three flows populate the cleaning schedule:

  • Onboarding import - if you uploaded a cleaning schedule during the onboarding wizard, the AI extraction maps each task into a cleaning item with the cadence it could infer. The seed runs idempotently, so re-running onboarding will not duplicate items.
  • Manual add - the Add cleaning item button on /safety/cleaning-schedule opens the form. Use this when a new piece of kit arrives or you decide to formalise an "as-needed" job.
  • Editing in place - clicking any row in the list opens the form in edit mode. Frequency changes, PPE updates, and notes go through the same form.

What an EHO sees​

When you export an EHO report pack, the Cleaning Schedule section prints as a table grouped by frequency. The columns are:

  • Item - what gets cleaned.
  • Location - the site name, or blank for tenant-wide items.
  • PPE - the resolved PPE labels, comma-separated.
  • Chemical - the linked COSHH chemical name, or blank.
  • Method - the numbered steps, or your notes if no steps were recorded.

The JSON export carries the same data with PPE as {code, label} pairs so downstream consumers can distinguish curated codes from a free-text Other label without re-parsing.

Audit trail​

Every create, update, archive, and delete on a cleaning item writes a SafetyAuditLog entry visible in the Audit Log. If a regular task suddenly disappears from the schedule, the audit log shows who archived it and when.

Archive vs delete​

  • Archive keeps the record but removes it from the active schedule. Archived items still appear when you tick Show archived on the list page, and stay in the audit history. Use archive when a job is no longer part of your routine but you want the historical evidence.
  • Delete removes the record entirely. Use sparingly - the audit log preserves the deletion event, but the item itself is gone. Most of the time, archive is the right choice.