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Food Control Plan app

The Food Control Plan App for NZ Food Businesses

A Food Control Plan app keeps the daily records your registered FCP requires — fridge and freezer temperatures, supplier deliveries, staff training and sickness, corrective actions — dated, initialled and ready to show your verifier. KitchenSorted does exactly that, free, on the phone already in your kitchen.

Free forever for the daily diary. No credit card. No hardware.

What records does a Food Control Plan app need to keep?

MPI's Record keeping guidance (February 2026) maps exactly which records a Simply Safe & Suitable template business must keep and which are optional. The mandatory set is smaller than most operators think — and some records people obsess over are actually optional:

Mandatory records

  • Daily fridge/chiller temperature checks (the temperature of the food)
  • Trusted supplier deliveries — supplier, food type and quantity, temperature at receipt where applicable
  • Staff training records (who, date, what was covered, signatures)
  • Staff sickness (who was sick, and when)
  • Equipment maintenance — including calibrating your own thermometer
  • When something goes wrong: what happened, how you fixed it, how you'll prevent it
  • Customer complaints (when one occurs)
  • Proving-your-method and batch checks for higher-risk processes (cooking poultry or minced meat, cooling, reheating, sous vide, and similar)

Optional (but worth having)

  • Daily cleaning results — MPI says recording how and what you clean is optional
  • Opening and closing checks
  • Allergen information records
  • Thermometer calibration results (doing the calibration is required; logging the numbers is optional)

Optional doesn't mean useless: a verifier reviewing your records moves faster when the evidence is there. It just means nobody should scare you into thinking you're breaking the rules without them.

Every record must be accurate, legible, dated, identify who did it and be available when your verifier or MPI asks (regulations 37 and 82), and be kept for at least 4 years (regulations 36 and 81, Food Regulations 2015).

Can you keep Food Control Plan records in an app?

Yes. MPI's February 2026 record-keeping guidance explicitly lists digital methods as acceptable ways to keep your records — spreadsheets, Google Sheets and Docs, online forms like Jot Form, online storage you can reach from your phone, even photos of a whiteboard. MPI doesn't endorse any product (including this one); it describes the methods generically. What matters is that the records are accurate, dated, attributable and available for 4 years.

The difference between DIY spreadsheets and a purpose-built Food Control Plan app: KitchenSorted already knows what an FCP record needs — every entry captures the date, time, result and who did it (the exact things regulation 37 requires of a record), flags out-of-range temperatures for a corrective action on the spot, and assembles everything into a one-click verification pack when your check comes around.

More detail: Can I keep my food safety records digitally in NZ?

How KitchenSorted covers each FCP record

Temperature logs

Fridge, freezer and cooking temps in a few taps, with out-of-range flags and corrective actions attached to the entry.

Goods-in & suppliers

Deliveries recorded as they land — supplier, food, quantity, temperature — plus a trusted-supplier directory.

Training & sickness

Staff training records with dates and sign-off, and a sickness log for who was off and when.

Corrective actions

When something goes wrong: what, the fix, and the prevention — linked to the log that triggered it.

Cleaning records

Optional under MPI's guidance, loved by verifiers: daily and deep cleans ticked off and dated.

Verification pack

Every record above, assembled into a dated PDF for the period your verifier asks for. One click.

See all features

Food Control Plan app FAQs

Yes — KitchenSorted's daily diary is free forever: unlimited temperature, cleaning and receiving logs for one site and two users, with 30 days of visible history. MPI's own printable record blanks are also free — here's an honest comparison of when digital beats paper.

No app can guarantee compliance — meeting your Food Control Plan is always the operator's responsibility, and your verifier decides the outcome. What KitchenSorted does is keep the records your plan requires organised, dated and easy to show.

Yes. National Programme operators (levels 1–3) must keep records too — training, supplier and traceability, transport temperatures, mock recalls. See how KitchenSorted handles National Programme records.

The old MPI Food Control Plan Diary belonged to a template that was revoked — businesses had to move off it by February 2024. Today MPI supplies printable "record blanks" instead. The full story, and what replaces the diary.

Sources & review

Reviewed on 2 August 2026 by the KitchenSorted team. Regulatory pages are re-reviewed quarterly, and immediately when MPI announces template or policy changes. Spotted something out of date? Tell us.

This page is general information, not legal or food-safety advice. Always confirm requirements with MPI, your registration authority, or your verifier.

Keep Every FCP Record in One Place

Start with the free diary today — upgrade only when you want the verification pack and 4 years of history.