Food safety software · Meat & butchery
Raw and ready-to-eat, and the line between them.
A butchery handling both raw meat and cooked or ready-to-eat product carries the single most scrutinised control in the sector. Separation has to be documented, evidenced and demonstrable — not described.
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The control they come for
Separation in space, in time, and in equipment — each one recorded.
Traceability that holds
A supplier lot resolving to specific cuts and specific customers, not a date range.
Cutting room and chills
Product temperature maintained through a process that generates heat.
Why butchery is different
E. coli O157 needs a very small dose. Cross-contamination is the whole game.
Space, time and equipment
Handling raw meat alongside cooked or ready-to-eat product requires documented controls: separate areas or separate times, dedicated equipment, and clean-down between.
Each control evidenced, not asserted
A process that warms product
Boning, cutting and mincing all add heat, and a cutting room has doors opening constantly. Product temperature has to be held through it.
Cutting room and chills monitored
Back to the supplier lot
A carcass or a primal becomes many cuts across many customers. Without batch links made at the time, a notification becomes a blanket withdrawal.
Codes assigned as you cut
Butchery controls
The controls an inspector
will ask you to demonstrate.
Raw and ready-to-eat separation, evidenced
Whether you separate by area, by time or by both, the control only counts if you can show it ran. Scheduled tasks record the sequence, the clean-down between and who signed it off.
- Separation by area or by scheduled time slot
- Dedicated equipment recorded where used
- Clean-down between raw and RTE, with photo evidence
Goods-in probing at the door
Delivery temperature, condition, supplier lot and kill or cutting date captured as the meat comes off the van, with the docket photographed against the record.
- Delivery temperature probed and recorded
- Supplier lot and kill date captured
- Docket photographed and attached
Cutting room and chill temperatures
A room that has to stay cold while people work in it, with doors opening all day. Continuous monitoring shows the drift a spot check at 8am never will.
- Cutting room monitored continuously
- Chills, blast freezers and cold stores covered
- Alerts escalated to a named person
Carcass to cut, in one chain
Assign codes as you break down, with the incoming lot attached. A supplier notification then resolves to the specific cuts made from it and the customers who took them.
- Incoming lot linked to each cutting run
- Cuts and mince batches coded at production
- Trace forward to wholesale and retail customers
Mincing, and where it concentrates risk
Mince spreads surface contamination through the product, which is exactly why the records around it get looked at. Batch, source and cleaning between runs all sit in one place.
- Mince batches recorded with source lots
- Cleaning between runs scheduled and signed
- Time and temperature captured against the run
Raw and ready-to-eat
Describing your separation
is not evidencing it.
Almost every butchery that also sells cooked meat, sandwiches or prepared product has a separation policy. Very few can produce, on the spot, the records showing that on a given Tuesday the sequence ran as written and the clean-down between happened.
That gap is what turns an inspection into a problem. Making separation a scheduled task with a sign-off and a photo means the evidence exists before anyone asks for it.
Time separation counts too
If you cannot separate by space, separating by scheduled slot works — provided the slots and the clean-down between them are recorded.
Photos do the arguing
A dated photo of a cleaned surface against the task is worth more at inspection than any written procedure.
Named sign-off
Every changeover carries the person who did it and the time it happened, so the record answers the follow-up question.
Butchery check sheets
Built for a butchery
before you log in.
Start from the butchery template and adjust it to your layout, your equipment and whether you handle ready-to-eat.
Food Guard revolutionised our food safety processes. It’s user-friendly, efficient, and ensures we meet ISO 22000 standards. The preventive controls and hazard analysis features are game-changers.
Caoilinn Q. — Quality Assurance Manager
Common questions
Butchery food safety
questions, answered.
How does this help with raw and ready-to-eat separation?
It turns the control into a record. Whether you separate by area, by time slot or both, each changeover becomes a scheduled task: the sequence, the dedicated equipment used, and the clean-down between, signed off by a named person with a photo where it helps. The policy on the wall describes the control — this is what demonstrates it ran.
Can we trace a carcass or primal through to individual cuts?
Yes. The incoming supplier lot is captured at goods-in and linked to the cutting runs that used it, and the cuts and mince batches produced are coded against that run. A supplier notification then resolves to the specific batches made from that lot and the customers who received them, rather than a date range you cannot narrow.
Do you handle kill dates and supplier lot numbers?
They are captured at goods-in alongside the delivery temperature and condition check, with the docket photographed against the record. Because they are entered at the door rather than transcribed later, the link between what arrived and what you produced from it is made while it is still accurate.
Is a cutting room worth monitoring with sensors?
It is one of the better cases. A cutting room has to stay cold while people work in it and doors open constantly, so it drifts in a way a sealed chill does not. Continuous readings show that pattern, and chills and blast freezers over a weekend are the other obvious candidates.
We are a single shop, not a processor. Is this relevant?
The controls are the same, there are just fewer of them. A shop selling both raw meat and cooked product carries the same separation obligation as a plant does, and the entry plan at 19.99 euro per site per month with unlimited users covers the check sheets and the app. Traceability and the full HACCP plan builder sit on the Standard plan.
Evidence the separation before they ask.
Start from the butchery template, set your changeover tasks and have the records exist ahead of the visit.