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Alberta Health Inspection Readiness Check

Alberta has one rulebook for restaurant kitchens, the Food Regulation, and it applies the same way in Calgary, Lethbridge or a highway diner up north. Public health inspectors look at how food is being held and handled while they're there, and they can ask for the paperwork the regulation requires: your permit, food safety certificates and written sanitation procedures.

These twelve questions cover what they look at, including Alberta's certificate rule, which changes once six or more food handlers are working. Your score out of 100 and your biggest gaps come up as soon as you answer the last one.

Check your kitchen

Turn on JavaScript to work through the questions one at a time and get your score.

Which describes you?
Does someone with care and control of the kitchen hold a food safety certificate, and when six or more food handlers are working, is a certified manager or supervisor on the premises?

Anyone who handles food, utensils or equipment counts as a food handler. Count only certificates the province issues or accepts as equivalent.

Do you check and write down fridge, freezer and hot-holding temperatures every day?

With a probe thermometer, at set times, on a log someone signs.

When you cool cooked food in bulk, do you check that it cools fast enough?

Soups, stocks, rice and braises cooled for the next day.

Is every handwashing sink stocked with soap and paper towels, and used only for handwashing?
Do staff know to report vomiting, diarrhea or other illness symptoms before a shift, and do you keep sick staff off food?
Do you test sanitizer strength and dishwasher temperatures or chemical levels?

Test strips for sanitizer buckets and sinks, and the dishwasher gauge or strips.

Do you follow a written cleaning schedule that staff sign off?
Is stored food covered, labelled and dated, with raw meat kept below ready-to-eat food?
Can staff tell a customer which menu items contain each priority allergen?

Canada's priority allergens are peanuts, tree nuts, milk, eggs, wheat and triticale, soy, sesame, mustard, fish, crustaceans and molluscs (shellfish), and sulphites.

Do you check for signs of pests and keep a record of pest control visits?
Do your written sanitation procedures list every cleaning and sanitizing product you use, with its concentration and what it's used for?
Is your food handling permit displayed where customers can easily see it?

How the score works

Each answer earns full, half or no credit. The 3 questions about things inspectors treat as a health hazard count three times as much as minor ones, and significant items count twice. Your score is the share of points you earned: 85 or more reads as inspection-ready, 60 to 84 as a few gaps to close, and below 60 as needs attention. A health-hazard question that isn't fully in place keeps the score out of the top band.

Gaps are listed by how many points they cost you, so the first one is where to start.

Questions about the Alberta check

Is this the same as an Alberta health inspection?

No. It's a self-check built around what public health inspectors commonly look at. Only an inspection and the report that comes from it are official.

Does a certified person have to be on site in Alberta?

It depends on how many food handlers are working. With five or fewer, at least one person who has care and control of the establishment must hold a certificate. With six or more, a member of the management or supervisory staff must hold one and be present at the time.

What's in the emailed report?

Every gap from your answers, a plan to fix each one, and links to printable checklists. You can also open those checklists in a free TenorOps account.