How to prove kitchen and hand hygiene compliance

The stakes are higher than they look on a normal Tuesday. A single failed environmental-health inspection can close a food business on the spot, and that's the UK Food Standards Agency's own enforcement guidance, not a scare figure. An inspector doesn't spend long in the kitchen, and neither does a franchise auditor passing through once a year. What they see in that hour becomes the whole verdict, whether or not it reflects the other three hundred and sixty-four days.

Why memory and paperwork fall short

Most kitchens already keep a cleaning log and a training record, and both are honest as far as they go. The trouble is they record what someone signed, not what a camera would have seen. A wipe-down that didn't happen still gets ticked if the shift is busy, and nobody sets out to lie, they just forget by Thursday what Monday looked like. A camera doesn't forget, and it doesn't need anyone to remember to write it down.

Watch the prep line and the wash station

This is what Kitchen Hygiene and Hand Hygiene Compliance are for, run together on the cameras that already cover the kitchen. Kitchen Hygiene watches the prep line and the pass for staff handling food without gloves or hair covering, food left uncovered, or a surface that's visibly dirty. Hand Hygiene Compliance watches the sinks and gel stations for washing at the points that matter: on the way to the line, after handling raw product, coming back from a break. Between the two, the areas an inspector actually walks toward are already being read.

Both are alerting checks, which means they judge a short window of recent frames rather than a single image, so a hand at the sink for a couple of seconds reads as a wash, not a blur near a tap. Each flag carries a timestamp and a description, and the footage behind it is searchable, so a manager can look at exactly what the camera saw and decide whether it needed a word at the pass.

1. 01

   Point cameras at the prep line and the wash points

   The prep surfaces, the pass and the sinks or gel stations are the areas worth covering. An RTSP camera already on the wall works as-is; Svid captures the feed on our side, no new hardware to fit.

2. 02

   Turn on both checks

   Create an account at app.svid.ai. Onboarding asks four questions and suggests a check bundle and a watch level, both editable, with the price shown alongside its full derivation before Stripe checkout. Kitchen Hygiene and Hand Hygiene Compliance are each priced in the Store as the extra they add at your own usage.

3. 03

   Read the flags as they land

   Alerts arrive on screen, by email, or by a JSON webhook into a system the kitchen already uses. One event fires one alert; the same check re-firing within two minutes is recorded as the event continuing, not a fresh alarm, so a busy service doesn't flood anyone's phone.

4. 04

   Keep the record for the audit

   Alerts and their footage stay searchable in the Library, scoped to the folder you keep the kitchen in and its subfolders. When the auditor or the EHO visits, the record of the weeks before is already there, not something anyone has to reconstruct on the spot.

What the record is good for, and what it isn't

A quiet week of alerts is worth having. It means nothing was flagged on the areas being watched, and that's useful to know and worth keeping alongside the cleaning log. It isn't a certificate, and we won't pretend it is: an inspection looks at more than what two cameras can see, and a clean feed doesn't guarantee the visit goes well. What it does is put a real, timestamped answer behind the question 'were hands washed and surfaces wiped this week', instead of a shrug and a paper log filled in at the end of the shift.

Does this guarantee we'll pass an EHO inspection?

No, and we wouldn't claim it. It builds a timestamped record of what the cameras saw at the prep line and the wash station, which is real evidence to bring to a visit. Proofing, training and the rest of the kitchen's standards are still the operator's job.

Can it tell the difference between a proper wash and someone rinsing their hands quickly?

It reads a window of frames around each visit to the sink or gel station and describes what it sees happening there. The clip is always attached to the alert, so a manager can watch the moment itself rather than take a single verdict on faith.

Do we need new cameras over the sinks?

Not if there's coverage already. Svid reads an RTSP feed from an existing camera, an uploaded file, a video URL, or a live phone camera at app.svid.ai/live.html once you've signed in on the device. A spare phone propped near a gel station works if a spot is currently uncovered.

Is this used to discipline staff?

That's not the point of either check. They describe practice at a station or a surface, not identity, and there's no facial recognition or biometrics anywhere in Svid. Most flags get fixed with a word during the shift, and the value is a quieter feed over time.

What does it cost across several kitchens?

Each check is priced from your own usage, shown as the extra it adds at your usage in the Store, on top of a subscription with a $9 a month floor. Running both checks across a folder of sites scales the same way: from the usage those cameras actually generate.