Why I built this
I've spent my entire working life in food production — starting as a scratch baker and working my way up to running production in a BRC-audited wholesale environment. At that level, compliance isn't a folder on a shelf. It's embedded into every process, every shift, every handover. You don't think about whether your records are in order — they just are, because the system makes it impossible for them not to be.
When I went back to working in smaller bakeries, I couldn't believe the gap. The regulatory expectations had grown. The scrutiny hadn't gone away. But the tools small food businesses were using to manage compliance hadn't moved in decades. Paper diaries. Handwritten logs. Folders that got wet, went missing, or were filled in poorly under pressure because nobody had time to do it properly.
I knew what good looked like. I knew it was achievable even at small scale. And I couldn't find anything built for independent food businesses that actually delivered it. So I built Culinary Key.
What an EHO inspector asks for
Environmental Health Officers don't give notice. When they arrive, they work through a standard set of checks. Here's what they look for — and how Culinary Key covers each one.
Temperature logs
Fridge, freezer and food probe records — are temperatures in range and logged consistently?
How Culinary Key covers thisOpening & closing checks
Are daily checks being completed at the start and end of every service?
How Culinary Key covers thisCleaning records
Is there evidence of daily cleaning tasks and scheduled deep cleans?
How Culinary Key covers thisAllergen information
Can staff demonstrate allergen awareness and are records up to date?
How Culinary Key covers thisStaff training
Are training records complete and certificates on file?
How Culinary Key covers thisPest control
Is there a log of pest control visits, findings and treatments?
How Culinary Key covers thisAudit trail
Is there a complete, accessible record of compliance activity over time?
How Culinary Key covers thisThe problem with paper isn't always missing records
The real issue with paper-based systems isn't that staff don't fill them in. It's that they fill them in badly — under pressure, in a rush, in the wrong place, left somewhere they shouldn't be. A record that exists but can't be found, or exists but is illegible, or exists but has a gap nobody noticed — that's the real risk.
Culinary Key catches those gaps in real time. Missed checks are flagged. Incomplete records are visible to managers before they become a problem. Everything is in one place, timestamped, and tied to the staff member who did it. It's impossible to misplace.