England, Wales and Northern Ireland make it an offence to keep chilled food above 8 °C. Scotland and Ireland set no figure in law, and the FSA advises setting fridges to 5 °C or below. The number that decides your audit is the one in your own HACCP plan, so it needs a source, a reason and an alarm set below it.
Why it matters
One fridge, four different numbers
Ask five people what temperature a chiller should run at and you can get five answers. The law in England says 8 °C. The FSA says set the fridge to 5 °C. The Chilled Food Association says products are designed for 'at or below 8ºC, targeting 5ºC'. Your customer's specification may be tighter again, and in Scotland the law gives no number at all.
These figures are not in conflict once you see what each one is for. The legal figure is a ceiling that makes keeping food warmer an offence. The advice figures are the margin that keeps you under the ceiling when doors open, deliveries arrive and defrost cycles run. Your own limit, written into your HACCP plan, is the one an EHO or auditor will hold you to, so it needs a source and a reason.
What the rules say
England, Wales and Northern Ireland: 8 °C, with defences
Schedule 4 of the Food Safety and Hygiene (England) Regulations 2013 makes it an offence to keep food that is 'likely to support the growth of pathogenic micro-organisms or the formation of toxins' at a temperature above 8 °C (paragraph 2). The FSA's guidance on temperature control legislation (FSA, 2016; written for caterers and retailers) is clear that 'the requirement is for the temperature of the food, not the surrounding air' (paragraph 27). The Welsh and Northern Ireland Schedules carry the same figures and structure.
The Schedule then gives a set of exemptions and defences. Exempt categories include food that is shelf-stable at ambient, canned or dried food until it is opened, and raw food that will be cooked (paragraph 3). A manufacturer may label food for storage between 8 °C and ambient, but only with 'a well-founded scientific assessment' behind it (paragraph 4). Paragraph 5 gives two time-based defences: food for service or on display may be above 8 °C for one period of less than four hours, and food may be above 8 °C 'for a limited period only' during transfer, handling, the defrosting of equipment or a temporary breakdown.
Two points catch people out. Schedule 4 does not apply to operations to which Regulation 853/2004 applies. Where 853/2004 sets a figure, that is the legal limit: Annex III sets 7 °C for red meat, 3 °C for offal, 4 °C for poultry and 2 °C for minced meat. For other products in approved premises the limit comes from the HACCP plan under the general duty in 852/2004. And every defence puts the burden of proof on the business: you have to show the time and the temperature, which is a records question, not a refrigeration one.
Scotland, the EU rule and the advice figures
Schedule 4 of the Food Hygiene (Scotland) Regulations 2006 sets no chill temperature. Food must be kept 'in a refrigerator or refrigerating chamber or in a cool ventilated place' or above 63 °C, with exemptions that include food being prepared, food exposed for sale and food being cooled 'as quickly as possible'. The FSA guidance says Scottish rules 'differ significantly' and recommends shortening shelf life if storage exceeds 8 °C. Food Standards Scotland's CookSafe manual recommends running chills at 5 °C or below.
Underneath both sits Regulation 852/2004, Annex II, Chapter IX: food is 'not to be kept at temperatures that might result in a risk to health' and 'the cold chain is not to be interrupted', with limited periods outside temperature control allowed where that does not put health at risk. The FSA's business guidance on chilling then gives the working figure: 'Set your fridge to 5°C or below to make sure food stays cold enough, even if the temperature changes.'
- Working range (FSA advice)
England, Wales and Northern Ireland: 8 °C is the legal maximum for the food (Schedule 4). The FSA advises setting fridges to 5 °C or below. The alert shown is our recommendation, not a requirement.
What good looks like
Pick one number, write down why, alarm before it
A defensible chill limit has three parts. First, the number: the strictest that applies to the product, whether that is the label, the shelf-life study, a customer specification or 853/2004. Second, the reason, recorded in the HACCP plan, so the answer to 'where does 5 °C come from?' is a document rather than a shrug. Third, a monitoring arrangement that would catch a failure before the food reaches the ceiling.
Measure the right thing. Air probes react to every door opening and defrost, which makes them a good early warning and a poor measure of the food. The FSA's Practice Guidance for officers treats air records as 'an indication of temperature history', and moves to between-pack and then destructive product testing when an officer needs evidence. A product-simulant probe on your critical units gives you a reading closer to what the officer will measure.
Worked example
A delivery that sits on the dock
This is an illustrative example; times and readings are invented. A food manufacturer in England stores ready-to-eat sandwiches with a customer specification of 0 to 5 °C. The chill store works to 5 °C, with an air alert after 30 minutes above 5 °C and an action alarm when the simulant probe has been at 7 °C for 15 minutes.
Monday 14:10, a vehicle arrives late and the chill store doors stay open for loading. 14:40, the air alert fires at 6.4 °C and the shift lead acknowledges it. 15:05, doors closed; the simulant probe peaked at 6.1 °C and is falling. 15:40, both probes are back under 5 °C.
What the site does: records the excursion, the peak, the duration and the response. The product never reached the 8 °C legal ceiling, so the question is the customer's limit: the technical manager assesses the product against the specification, releases it, and records the decision. What changes: the loading procedure now uses a strip curtain and caps door-open time, and the late-delivery slot moves away from the dispatch peak.
Where it is unclear
Retailer codes, Scotland and the air-or-food question
Retailer codes are often said to require tighter chill limits than the law, but we found no publicly published retailer figure we could verify, so we do not quote one. The Chilled Food Association gives the industry target of 5 °C. If you supply a retailer, its code or your specification is the document that counts: ask for the clause.
Scotland is open in a different way. With no figure in law, the working limit comes from guidance (8 °C recommended, 5 °C in CookSafe) and your HACCP. And the law in every nation is silent on how the temperature is measured and how often. Our position on each of these is on where the rules differ.
Inspection findings
What inspectors score and find
Temperature control sits inside the hygiene element of the food hygiene rating. The FSA's Brand Standard gives, as an example of a score of 10, 'high-risk food held under refrigeration generally below 8°C but some evidence of rising above such as when busy, some lapses in monitoring of critical control points'. Because a 5 rating needs no single score above 5, that example alone caps a business at a 4. A score of 25 includes 'fridge not operating at correct temperature'.
Prosecutions show the same pattern. In a Hillingdon case from May 2025, officers found a broken fridge, a freezer alarming at 30 °C and no temperature controls for cooked food; the business was ordered to pay £16,491.20. National figures are not broken down by cause: the FSA's 2024/25 local authority report counts 6,199 formal hygiene enforcement actions without saying how many were about temperature.
In summary
The short version
- 8 °C is the legal ceiling for the food in England, Wales and Northern Ireland; it is not a target.
- Scotland and Ireland set no chill figure in law; FSS and the FSAI advise 5 °C or below.
- Where 853/2004 applies, Schedule 4 does not: its figures (7 °C meat, 3 °C offal, 4 °C poultry, 2 °C mince) are the legal limits, and other products follow the HACCP plan.
- The four-hour display and limited-period defences need proof of time: keep time-stamped records.
- Work to the strictest limit that applies, record where it comes from, and alarm before 8 °C.
- Measure the food where it matters; air readings are the early warning.