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EHO inspection checklist for mobile caterers

An EHO (Environmental Health Officer) can visit your pitch unannounced, so being inspection-ready every day matters. Here is exactly what they look at and a checklist to prepare.

What does an EHO actually check?

Officers score three areas, and together they decide your food hygiene rating:

• Food hygiene and safety — how you handle, cook, cool, chill and store food, and how you avoid cross-contamination.
• Structure and cleanliness — the condition of your unit, equipment, hand-washing facilities and pest control.
• Confidence in management — your systems and, crucially, your records. This is where a lot of mobile caterers lose marks, because paper gets lost or was never kept.

The pre-inspection checklist

Run through this before every trading day, not just when you expect a visit:

1. Fridge, freezer and hot-hold temperatures logged for today.
2. Opening and closing checks completed and signed.
3. Cleaning schedule up to date, with sign-offs.
4. Your Safer Food, Better Business (SFBB) pack or equivalent diary filled in.
5. Delivery and probe-check records for high-risk foods.
6. Allergen information available for every dish you sell.
7. Hand-washing facilities stocked (hot water, soap, paper towels).
8. Waste stored correctly and pest control evidence to hand.
9. Staff trained, with training records available.
10. Any past issues fixed, with the corrective action recorded.

What happens if records are missing?

Missing records don't just cost you a point — they undermine the officer's confidence in everything else, which can pull your whole rating down. The most common gap is temperature logs and a completed daily diary. Keeping them consistently is the single highest-impact thing a mobile caterer can do.

Last updated 19 July 2026. This guide is general information for UK mobile caterers, not legal advice — always check the specific requirements of your local authority.