Reheat Pies or Scoop Ice Cream? That's Handle-and-Sell
Dairies warming pies, service stations with a bain-marie, shops scooping ice cream — if you handle food for retail without preparing or manufacturing it, MPI's guidance puts you under National Programme 3. No written Food Control Plan, verification at least every 2 years, and a record set KitchenSorted keeps on your phone, free.
'Kitchen' is in our name, but a dairy counter counts — handle-and-sell is one of the non-kitchen segments KitchenSorted is built for.
What counts as handling food for retail?
MPI's National Programme 3 guidance (December 2025, version 2) lists on its cover: “Handle food for retail (including scooping ice cream and reheating manufacture prepared food)”. The guidance defines reheating as making cooked food that has cooled down hot again — the pie warmer and the bain-marie in a nutshell. The boundary is preparing: if you start making sandwiches, cooking meals or assembling food, you're likely beyond handling — and which measure applies then is a question for MPI's My Food Rules tool, not for us.
NP3 sits alongside brewers, oil and beverage manufacturers, grain and spice processors on the highest National Programme tier — still no written Food Control Plan, with verification at least once every 2 years (regulation 91, Food Regulations 2015).
The rules that matter at the counter
The NP3 guidance's day-to-day cards read like a dairy counter's checklist, in MPI's own numbers: keep hot foods above 60°C, and reheat food to at least 75°C before placing it in a bain-marie or food warmer. Packaged frozen goods have their own line — packaged ice creams must be kept frozen and should not be sold after their Use-By date.
Behind the counter sit the universal NP3 duties: cleaning and sanitising, pest control, personal hygiene and health, safe storage, and tracing what you sell — including testing your recall procedure with a yearly simulated (mock) recall (NP3 guidance; free mock recall template).
The records, kept the easy way
Every record must state when it happened, the result and who did it, and be kept at least 4 years (regulations 81–82, Food Regulations 2015). In KitchenSorted that's the daily rhythm of a counter: warmer and freezer temperatures with out-of-range flags, cleaning ticked off as it happens, deliveries logged as they land, training signed off, the yearly mock recall one dated entry. Daily records are free, and stay free — 4 years of history, verification packs and reminders live in the paid plan, and your free-plan records are never deleted; they unlock when you upgrade.
Sources & review
- MPI: National Programme 3 guidance, December 2025 v2 (PDF)
- MPI: Steps to National Programme 3
- MPI: My Food Rules
- Food Regulations 2015 (regs 81–82, 91)
Reviewed on 4 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.
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