How I Use the Barbeques Template with Customers in Pilla
Barbecues are where food safety training falls apart. I've watched chefs who run a tight kitchen walk outside, fire up a charcoal grill, and forget half of what they know. Raw chicken goes on next to cooked burgers. Tongs get shared. Food sits on a prep table in direct sunlight for twenty minutes while someone works out why the coals won't light. The outdoor setting changes the psychology. People relax. The controls they follow without thinking indoors just vanish.
The risks aren't theoretical. Barbecued food burns on the outside while staying raw in the middle, and a charred exterior fools people into thinking it's cooked through. Processed meats and poultry are the worst offenders because bacteria runs through the whole product, not just the surface. This article covers what your barbecue safety policy needs to include, gives you a ready-made template to start from, and explains the bits that actually trip people up when an EHO asks about outdoor cooking.
Key Takeaways
- What is barbecue safety in food safety? A barbecue safety policy covers the specific risks of cooking outdoors on barbecues, including uneven cooking temperatures, the burnt outside/raw inside problem, separation of raw and cooked foods, and maintaining hygiene without full kitchen facilities
- Why do you need a barbecue safety policy? Regulation (EC) 852/2004 requires food to be cooked to temperatures that eliminate microbiological hazards, and barbecues make that harder to control than conventional cooking. Your EHO will expect documented procedures for any outdoor cooking you do
- How do you set it up in Pilla? Use the knowledge hub template below, edit it to match your operation, and share it with your team through the app so everyone has access and you can track who's read it
- How do you automate the follow-up? Set up Poppi to chase staff who haven't acknowledged the policy and flag when it's due for review
Article Content
Understanding What's Required of You
Barbecue cooking sits in a different risk category to anything you do in a kitchen. You lose control of the three things that keep food safe: temperature, hygiene, and separation. An oven has a thermostat. A barbecue has burning coals and guesswork.
The main hazard is microbiological. Charcoal barbecues burn food on the outside surface while the inside stays raw or semi-cooked. With whole cuts of meat, that's a lower risk because bacteria sit on the surface. With processed meats like burgers and sausages, the mincing process transfers surface bacteria throughout the product. The same applies to poultry, which can be contaminated all the way through. A burger that looks charred and done at 60°c in the centre is a food poisoning risk.
There are physical contamination risks too. Outdoor cooking exposes food to foreign bodies, flies, rust and flaking paint from poorly maintained equipment, and debris from the environment. These don't exist in a controlled kitchen.
Then there's the hygiene gap. Hand wash basins aren't readily available outside. Staff handle raw chicken, touch tongs, touch serving plates, and there's no sink within arm's reach. I've seen barbecue setups at events where the nearest hand wash facility was a two-minute walk away. That's not a hand washing programme. That's a cross-contamination programme.
The legal basis is Regulation (EC) 852/2004. Food must be cooked to temperatures that eliminate microbiological hazards, and food business operators must have procedures in place to control risks at each stage. Barbecue cooking doesn't get an exemption because it's outdoors. Your EHO will expect to see documented procedures covering how you manage the specific risks, and they'll want evidence that you're monitoring cooking temperatures. If you run barbecue events and can't show how you control the hazards, that's a gap they'll flag.
Setting It Up as a Knowledge Hub Entry
I've built a barbecue safety template in Pilla covering hygiene procedures, storage, defrosting, charcoal preparation, the burning problem, pre-cooking, separation and rotation, maintenance, cleaning, ready-to-eat food handling, corrective actions, and record keeping. It gives you a structured starting point for any operation that does outdoor cooking.
In the knowledge hub, create a new entry and tag it with "Food Safety Management System". Use the same tag across all of your food safety policies so they are grouped together and Poppi can track them as a set. Assign the entry to all teams so that everyone in the business can access it.
The template is designed to be edited, not just filed. If you only use gas barbecues, delete the charcoal sections and add detail on gas safety checks. If you run large events with continuous cooking, add your batch management and hot holding procedures. If you don't do barbecues at all, you don't need this policy. The EHO wants to see that your procedures match what you actually do.
If barbeques are used on site, then special steps must be taken to ensure the safety of food produced.
Unlike cooking foods in an oven, the cooking temperature of barbequed food is difficult to control. Often foods will cook relatively quick at the surface but remain raw or semi cooked in other parts of the food.
Other hazards to cooking outside include foreign body contamination as well as pests such as flies contaminating foods. Also, sometimes the strict hygiene controls carried out in a kitchen can be more difficult to maintain outside in the open.
Staff must follow the safety points below in order to maintain a consistent level of food safety.
Safety points
Hygiene procedure
- Ensure that food handlers maintain high standards of personal hygiene and maintain recommended hand washing frequencies, especially when handling raw products and high risk cooked or RTE products
- All utensils and equipment must be cleaned and disinfected before, during and after service. Staff should be vigilant and careful not to use utensils such as cooking tongs to pick up raw or semi raw products then handling cooked foods with the same utensils
- Good hygiene practices will be especially important as hand wash basins may not be readily available for hand washing
Storage
- Ensure that any foods to be barbequed are only removed from storage immediately prior to cooking, do not allow foods to sit around at ambient temperatures
- High protein and perishable foods left at ambient temperatures for even a short time can become hazardous when multiplication of bacteria takes place once food is put into the danger zone (5-63°c)
Defrosting
- Ensure that high protein foods such as meat, fish and poultry are fully defrosted prior to barbequing
- Foods that have not been adequately defrosted will not cook evenly putting consumers at risk of food poisoning from bacteria that may have survived the cooking process
Processed meats
- All poultry products and processed meats, such as burgers and sausages must be cooked thoroughly to a temperature above 75°c, this must be checked with a food probe
- Poultry products can be potentially contaminated completely throughout the product, whereas processed meats such as burgers contain minced meat products, the bacteria present on the original surface of the meat will have been transferred to the inside of the product by the mincing process
Charcoal
- For safer cooking on a barbeque it is important to ensure that the barbeque is lit well in advance to allow the fire to develop properly
- The charcoal should be glowing red with grey powdered edges before any cooking starts to take place. Do not cook whilst visible flames are seen as the fire will not be hot enough
Burning procedure
- Burnt food can give the impression that it has fully cooked, this is not true with barbeques as they often burn foods very quickly on the outside surface whilst the inside is not fully cooked
- If food starts to burn too quickly, then raise the grill height or turn down the heat (if a gas barbeque) or damp the coals if not
Pre-cooking food
- Whenever possible it is safer to pre-cook foods in the oven or microwave prior to finishing off the cooking process on the barbeque
- Use clean and disinfected utensils and containers whilst transferring semi cooked foods
Separation and rotation
- Ensure separate areas of the barbeque are used for raw, cooking and cooked foods
- Ensure that raw products and their juices/blood does not touch or drip onto cooking or cooked foods
- Ideally, it is best to cook all raw foods at once and remove the cooked foods prior to the placement of the next batch. If this is not possible, it is good practice to work from left to right, introducing raw foods from the left, cooked foods must be kept separated on the right of the barbeque, ensuring that separate tongs are used
Maintenance
- Maintain the physical condition of the barbeque, ensure that there is no rust or flaking paint that can cause physical contamination of the products
- Ensure that gas barbeques are regularly checked especially hoses and gas valves and kept in a highly maintained state
Cleaning
- Ensure that the barbeque is cleaned and disinfected before and after use with appropriate food grade chemicals
Ready to eat foods
- Salads and any other RTE food being offered as part of the barbeque must remain in cold storage until immediately prior to serving
- Perishable foods must not be stored in the open air but must be covered and placed in a cooler area until required
Corrective actions
- Foods that have not attained a safe temperature throughout must be cooked further until correct temperatures are reached
- Use alternative equipment, change the grill height or alter the heat if food is not cooking evenly or is burning
- Replace the barbeque if faulty or damaged
- Food that may have been cross contaminated should be discarded
- If staff do not follow the safety points above, then retrain them and increase supervision until competency can be shown
Record keeping
- Take random temperature checks of cooked foods and record
- Record any contraventions of the safety points also record any corrective actions taken
- Record any training or retraining undertaken
This is a preview of the template. In Pilla, you can edit this to match your business.
What I'd want to see when reviewing this:
The charcoal preparation section is where most problems start. Charcoal should be glowing red with grey powdered edges before any cooking begins. Visible flames mean the fire isn't ready, and that's counterintuitive for most people. Flames look hot, but they produce uneven, uncontrollable heat. I'd want to see that your team understands this distinction and that you've built in enough lead time before service to let the coals develop properly.
The separation and rotation section matters more on a barbecue than almost anywhere else in a kitchen. The left-to-right workflow, raw on the left moving to cooked on the right, with separate tongs for each, is the simplest way to prevent cross-contamination on a grill. I'd want to see that you've specified separate utensils and that staff know raw juices and blood must not touch or drip onto cooking or cooked foods.
Temperature probing is non-negotiable for barbecued food. All poultry and processed meats must reach 75°c, checked with a probe. You cannot judge doneness by appearance on a barbecue. A sausage that's black on the outside can be 65°c in the middle. I'd want to see probing written into your procedures as a mandatory step, not a suggestion.
Common mistakes I see:
The storage section gets ignored at events. The template says foods should only be removed from storage immediately prior to cooking. In practice, I see everything pulled out of the fridge at once and piled on a table in the sun. On a warm day, high-protein food hits the danger zone fast. The fix is simple: keep food in cold storage and pull items as you need them.
Pre-cooking is underused. The template covers pre-cooking in the oven or microwave before finishing on the barbecue, and it's the safest approach for thick chicken pieces and dense sausages. Most operations skip it because it feels like extra work. But it's the difference between food that's safely cooked through with a barbecue finish and food that's charred on the outside and risky in the middle.
The corrective actions section is often left generic. The template covers what to do when food hasn't reached safe temperatures, when equipment is faulty, when cross-contamination happens, and when staff don't follow procedures. I'd want to see specific actions, not just "retrain staff." What does retraining look like? Who supervises until competency is shown? If your corrective actions are vague, an EHO will notice.
RTE food handling gets forgotten during barbecue service. The template states that salads and other RTE foods must remain in cold storage until immediately prior to serving, and perishable foods must not be stored in the open air. I still see salad bowls sitting out uncovered from the start of service. Flies, warm temperatures, and no cooking step to fix contamination make this a high-risk mistake.
Automate the Follow-Up with Poppi
Writing the policy is one thing. Making sure your team has actually read it is another. Poppi can handle the chasing so you don't have to.
If you mark the knowledge hub entry as mandatory, Poppi will track who's read it and who hasn't. You can set up automations to chase staff who are behind, notify managers when someone completes the policy, and get a regular report showing where the gaps are.
Here are three automations I'd set up for any knowledge hub policy:
Tom, you have 2 overdue policies to read and acknowledge
Overdue training reminders
Automatically chase team members who have mandatory policies they haven't read yet. Poppi sends the reminder so you don't have to.
Tom, you have 2 overdue policies to read and acknowledge
Emma has completed a mandatory policy
Video completion alerts
Get notified when a team member finishes reading or watching a policy, so you can track progress without chasing.
Emma has completed a mandatory policy
Training Report: 87% team completion. Tom and Sarah behind on 2 mandatory policies, due 3 days ago.
Training gap analysis
Get a regular AI report showing which team members are behind on mandatory policies and where the gaps are across your team.
Training Report: 87% team completion. Tom and Sarah behind on 2 mandatory policies, due 3 days ago.