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Free · five guides

Free step-by-step compliance guides

The jobs every Irish food business has to do itself — registering, writing a HACCP plan, getting prerequisites in place, risk assessments and a safety statement, and the fire records that run every week. Worked through one step at a time, for nothing.

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Read this before you start.

Food Safe Ireland is a private training company. We are not a food authority, we are not part of the State, and nothing you do in a guide is approved or certified by anyone.

The guides are guidance, not advice, and they are unsupported. We cannot review your documents, complete an application for you, or advise on your particular premises. Everything you need to do it yourself is in the steps — but the doing is yours.

If you want that kind of help it belongs in a paid service rather than a free guide. Email [email protected] and we will tell you what is available.

How they work

Not an article. A walkthrough.

Each guide is six or seven steps. Each step ends with a tick-list of what you should actually be holding before you move on — and where the next move is outside the guide, it tells you and links you straight there.

A tick-list at every step

Not “consider your hazards” — a list of what you should have written down, so you can tell whether you are actually finished or just feel finished.

The door out, named

Where the next thing is a State body or an official form, we say so and link it. You are ready, here is where to go — not a paraphrase of somebody else's page.

Mark each step done

Tick the step off as you clear it. The guide remembers where you got to, so you can put it down for a fortnight and come back without losing your place.

All five

Pick the one you need first.

Most new businesses start with registration, then prerequisites, then the HACCP plan. If you are already trading, start wherever the gap is.

How to register a food business in Ireland Which of the three authorities registers you, what they ask for, how to notify them, and what has to be in place before you open. Six stepsOpen the guide → How to write your own HACCP plan The seven principles, one step at a time, applied to your kitchen rather than a template someone else wrote. Seven stepsOpen the guide → Prerequisite programmes for food businesses Cleaning, pest control, supplier approval, waste, personal hygiene and maintenance — the foundations HACCP sits on. Six stepsOpen the guide → How to write your own risk assessments and safety statement Sections 19 and 20 of the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act 2005, worked through for a real workplace. Six stepsOpen the guide → Fire safety records and checks The routine that runs every week forever: daily checks, alarm tests, drills, extinguishers, emergency lighting and fire doors. Six stepsOpen the guide →
Questions

The honest answers.

Yes. No card, no trial, no upsell wall part-way through. You sign in so the site can remember which step you are on, and that is the whole transaction.

Because the people who work through one usually end up needing training or record sheets, and we would rather they came to us than to a template mill. The guides stand on their own either way — a free guide that reads as an advert is worth less than nothing on compliance content.

No. Food Safe Ireland is a private training company. We are not part of the State and we do not approve or certify anything you write in a guide. You register with, and are inspected by, the actual authorities — the guides tell you which ones and link you to them.

Not on the free guides — they are guidance only and unsupported, and that includes reviewing documents and completing applications. If you want hands-on help, email [email protected] and we will tell you what is available.

As long as you want. They are self-paced with no deadlines and nothing expires. Most people do a step, go and do the actual work, then come back.

No. A guide is not training and it is not assessed, so there is nothing to certify. Our courses do issue dated, verifiable certificates — that is a different thing, and it is a paid one.

Start with whichever one is keeping you up.

Free · self-paced · nothing expires.
Guidance only, and unsupported — the doing is yours.

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