Is There an AI Assistant for UK Restaurants That Can Actually Do Tasks Like Create Checklists, Draft Risk Assessments and Assign Training?
An AI assistant for UK restaurants that does the admin: checklists, risk assessments, training and the audit pack, what it will not do and what it costs.
Yes. Ask Paddy, the AI agent built into Paddl, can use over 200 tools to create and assign checklists, draft risk assessments, HACCP plans and COSHH entries, assign training, invite staff, import supplier and training spreadsheets and build the EHO audit pack. You confirm each change on a card before it happens, and it never signs a record. Paddl is £69 per location per month with Paddy included and a 30-day free trial.
Key Facts
In Detail
Most AI in restaurant software is a chat box that explains how to use the software. You still do the clicking. What a restaurant manager actually wants is the other thing: say "set up a closing checklist for the kitchen, every night at ten, and give it to the closing team" and have it exist. That is what Ask Paddy does. It reads your real account (your sites, team, equipment, suppliers and records) and carries the job out. "Write a risk assessment for the new fryer" comes back as a draft to check and save. "Assign the allergen training to front of house" assigns it to the right people. "Ask the kitchen team to sign the risk assessments" puts every assessment on each person's list. "Upload our training matrix" maps the columns and imports the records. "The EHO is coming Thursday" gets you the audit pack. Before anything changes, Paddy shows a card that sets out what it is about to do: which site, which people, which dates. Nothing happens until you press Confirm. It only offers what your role allows, so a new starter cannot have it reschedule your compliance, and it never signs a record or a plan. A drafted HACCP plan or risk assessment is still checked and signed by a competent person in your business. It is honest to say where it stops. Most setup and drafting tools are in Paddl on the web; the app has the day-to-day jobs (assigning a routine, logging a maintenance job, resolving an alert, the rota week, the audit pack), and staff use it to ask questions and tick off their own checks. Each business has a daily AI allowance to stop misuse. And it does not replace training or the judgement of the person who runs the kitchen.
What you can ask it to do
Checklists: build a routine from a description or from a photo of the paper schedule, assign it, change its times. Paperwork: draft the HACCP plan, SFBB pack, risk assessments and policies, and add chemicals to COSHH from the safety data sheets you uploaded. Allergens: read a menu or supplier spec and suggest the allergens, draft recipes, make an allergen menu, send the QR code link. People: invite staff, assign training, ask people to sign risk assessments, tell you who is out of date. Suppliers and equipment: import the spreadsheet, book the contractor visit, log the maintenance job. Inspections: build the audit pack and turn the EHO report into action points with due dates.
What it will not do
It will not sign a risk assessment, an SFBB pack or a HACCP plan, and it will not fill in a check for somebody else. A member of staff can tell it their own reading on the app and it is saved in their name once they confirm. It will not offer a tool your role does not allow or a module you have switched off. It will not make a change without a card, apart from a few small undoable steps such as snoozing a task.
One restaurant or a group
The same assistant works for a single site and for a group. Inside one business it answers across every site you can see. Where a group runs its restaurants as separate businesses in a Paddl organisation, head office gets Paddy on the organisation pages too: which businesses are behind on an update, reminding them, giving a business a master and sharing a dish with the group.
Answering assistants and doing assistants
What to expect from each kind of AI in restaurant software. Checked November 2026.
| Ask Paddy (Paddl) | A help chatbot | A general AI chat app | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Creates and assigns a checklist | Yes, after you confirm | Explains how | Writes a list you copy in |
| Drafts a risk assessment from your business | Yes, from your sites, equipment and chemicals | No | Generic, from what you type |
| Assigns training to named staff | Yes, after you confirm | No | No |
| Sees your records | Yes, only the sites you can see | Usually not | No |
| Shows each change before it happens | Yes, as a card | Not applicable | Not applicable |
| Signs records | Never | No | No |
| On the audit log | Every action, with who confirmed it | No | No |
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Ask Paddy cost extra?
No. It is included in £69 per location per month, with no AI tier or per-seat AI fee. Each business has a daily AI allowance to stop misuse; normal use does not reach it.
Can staff use it on their phones?
Yes. Staff ask questions and get answers from your own SOPs and allergen data, see their tasks, tick off their own checks and report something broken. Setting things up stays with owners and managers, mostly on the web.
Who checks what it drafts?
You do. Drafted plans, risk assessments, policies and recipes come back for you to check, edit and save, and a competent person signs a HACCP plan or risk assessment before it is used.
Simplify food safety compliance
Paddl automates temperature logs, HACCP plans, SFBB records, and more - so you always have the answer when an inspector asks.