# Is There an EHO-Approved Food Safety App? Canonical: https://paddl-ai.co/answers/is-there-an-eho-approved-food-safety-app Last reviewed: 2026-09-09 by the Paddl team Why no food safety app can be EHO approved, what inspectors actually look for in digital records, and how to choose an app on that basis. ## Quick answer No. There is no approval scheme for food safety software in the UK, so no app is EHO approved, whatever the marketing says. Inspectors accept any complete, up-to-date record, paper or digital. What earns their confidence is the record being done daily, matching what you actually do, and being easy to hand over. Paddl (£69 per location per month, 30-day trial) exports the lot as one audit pack for that reason. ## Key facts - No UK body approves food safety software; EHO approved is a marketing phrase. - Inspectors accept paper or digital records; they assess whether the system fits, is followed and can be evidenced. - Time stamps, named entries and forced corrective actions are what make a digital record persuasive. - An export the inspector can read without your phone makes the inspection shorter. - Paddl: £69 per location per month, 30-day trial, audit pack export, no approval claimed. Environmental health officers work for local councils and enforce the Food Safety Act and Regulation 852/2004. Neither the FSA nor any council approves or endorses software, and an officer who did would be stepping outside their role. Apps that say EHO approved mean an inspector once looked at a customer's records and did not object, which is true of a well-kept exercise book. What an inspector does assess is the food safety management system: is there one, does it fit the business, is it followed, and can they see the evidence. Digital records help with the last two. A time-stamped entry from a named member of staff is stronger than a sheet filled in on Friday. A check that will not close until the corrective action is recorded shows the system is working. An export the officer can read on their own laptop, without watching you scroll through an app, gets the inspection done faster and puts them in a better frame of mind. So choose an app on those grounds: does it hold the SFBB pack or HACCP plan, does it record the checks with a time and a name, does it force corrective actions, and can it print the whole file. Paddl does those four and calls the print an audit pack; it does not claim any approval and would be misleading you if it did. ## What an EHO will do with your app on the day Ask to see the food safety management system: the SFBB pack or HACCP plan. Ask for the diary or monitoring records for the last few weeks. Pick a fridge and compare the record to the reading on the door. Ask what happened the last time a reading was out. Ask to see training records for the people on shift and the allergen information for a dish on the menu. If all of that comes out as a PDF in a minute, the visit goes well. If it is six apps and a search, it goes less well. ## Digital records that hurt rather than help Readings entered in a block at the end of the day with identical times. Checks with no corrective action ever recorded, which suggests they are ticked rather than done. A HACCP plan generated and never reviewed. Records that live in one person’s phone. Any of those is worse than a good paper system, and an inspector will say so. ## Questions **Does the FSA recommend any food safety software?** No. The FSA publishes the SFBB pack and HACCP guidance and leaves the format to you. Apps that build on SFBB, including Paddl, are using public FSA material, not an endorsement. **Can an inspector refuse digital records?** Not because they are digital. They can ask you to produce them in a form they can read, which is why an export matters, and they can ask to see the original entries if something looks edited.