If you've ever sat down to fill in your Digital SFBB — your CCDFSM — you'll know the feeling.
You open the first section. Cross-contamination practices. You know exactly what you do in your kitchen. Raw meat goes on the bottom shelf. You use colour-coded chopping boards. Everyone washes their hands. But turning that into professional, EHO-ready written procedures? That takes time, careful thought, and a level of formal writing that most busy kitchen owners don't have hours to spare for.
Now multiply that by 13 sections.
That's why we built Alice.
What is Alice?
Alice is CompliChef's AI food safety assistant, built directly into KitchenPortal. She's designed to do one thing exceptionally well: have a short, friendly conversation with you about your kitchen — and then write your entire CCDFSM for you.
Not a template. Not a generic document where you swap in your business name. A real, specific set of food safety procedures based on what your kitchen actually does.
Alice interviews you in plain English. You answer in plain English. And within 15 minutes, she generates all 13 sections of your CCDFSM — the kind of professional documentation that an Environmental Health Officer expects to see, and that would normally take a food safety consultant several hours to produce.
How does the Alice interview work?
When you open the Alice chat in KitchenPortal, she introduces herself and gets straight to it. She works through 14 topic areas, one at a time, asking clear and simple questions:
- Business type and food service — what kind of operation you run and roughly how many covers or meals you serve
- Kitchen setup and food types — your prep environment, the types of food you handle
- Raw and ready-to-eat separation — how you prevent cross-contamination
- Refrigeration, chilling and date-labelling — your cold chain practices
- Cooking methods and temperature verification — how you ensure food is cooked safely
- Daily and deep cleaning — your routines, chemicals and frequencies
- COSHH storage and PPE — how you handle and store cleaning chemicals safely
- Staff food hygiene training and illness policies — qualifications, handwashing, return-to-work
- Allergen management — how you identify, label and communicate allergen information
- Food suppliers and delivery inspection — your approved supplier list and intake checks
- Pest control — your contractor, visit frequency and prevention measures
- Temperature monitoring equipment — your probes, calibration and action points
- Opening and closing checks — your daily management routines
- Complaints and corrective actions — how you handle incidents and food complaints
Your answers don't need to be long or formal. "We use colour-coded boards and raw meat always goes on the bottom shelf" is a perfectly good answer. Alice takes what you tell her and expands it into polished, professionally worded procedures — in the first-person business voice that EHOs expect to read.
What does she generate?
When Alice has gathered enough information — typically after 12 to 15 exchanges — she tells you she's ready to build your CCDFSM. Confirm, and she produces all 13 sections simultaneously:
| Section | What Alice writes | |---|---| | Cross-Contamination | Raw storage, equipment, prep separation, staff hygiene, allergen controls | | Cleaning | Daily cleaning, deep cleaning, chemical use, verification | | COSHH | Chemical storage, data sheets, dilution, PPE, staff training | | Chilling | Fridge rules, cooling procedures, defrosting, date labelling | | Cooking | Cooking temperatures, reheating, hot holding, verification | | Management | Opening/closing checks, diary reviews, complaints, pest and maintenance | | HACCP Plan | Scope, key steps, monitoring, corrective actions | | Staff Hygiene | Training, uniforms, illness reporting, handwashing policy | | Deliveries & Suppliers | Approved suppliers, delivery checks, returns, traceability | | Temperature Monitoring | Routine checks, probe use, calibration, failure actions | | Pest Control | Contractor details, prevention measures, staff reporting, monitoring | | Allergen Management | Allergen system, information provision, training, cross-contamination prevention | | Staff Training Policies | Induction, ongoing training, records, supervision, documentation |
Every section is written in 2–4 professional sentences tailored to what you told Alice. Where you didn't provide a specific detail, she applies a sensible, compliant UK-standard default. The result is a complete, coherent CCDFSM that reads as if it was written by a food safety consultant — because the underlying knowledge driving it was trained on exactly that kind of expertise.
Why is this better than writing it yourself?
Most food business owners know their own practices perfectly well. The difficulty isn't the knowledge — it's the translation. Turning everyday kitchen habits into formal, EHO-approved written procedures requires a specific kind of language and structure that doesn't come naturally to everyone.
Food safety consultants exist precisely because this translation is hard. A consultant visit to produce your HACCP and food safety documentation typically costs several hundred pounds. Alice does the same job in 15 minutes, for a one-time unlock fee of £25.
And unlike a consultant's document that sits in a folder gathering dust, Alice populates your live CCDFSM in KitchenPortal — where you can review, edit and update every section yourself at any time. It's a starting point that's already 90% finished, not a blank page.
Is the output really EHO-ready?
Yes — with the caveat that you should always review what Alice generates and make sure it accurately reflects your actual practices.
Alice writes in the standard format that EHOs recognise: first-person business voice ("We store all raw meats..."), clear reference to UK food safety requirements, and logical structure across all the areas an inspector will want to examine. The language is professional but not overly corporate — it reads like a well-run kitchen's genuine procedures, which is exactly what it should be.
The sections Alice generates map directly to the FSA's Safer Food Better Business guidance structure, covering every CCP and management area an EHO would expect to find documented.
What happens after Alice generates the CCDFSM?
Once Alice has produced all 13 sections, a single button — "Apply to My CCDFSM" — populates every section of your KitchenPortal CCDFSM instantly. You'll see your live compliance score update as the sections are filled in.
From there, you can:
- Review each section and read through what Alice wrote
- Edit any section to tweak wording, add more specific details, or update procedures as your kitchen evolves
- Mark sections complete to track your overall CCDFSM score
- Export your full CCDFSM as a PDF any time — ready to hand to an EHO, a landlord, or a client who asks for your food safety documentation
Your CCDFSM is now a living document, not a one-off submission. As your kitchen changes — new menu, new staff, new supplier — you can update individual sections at any time.
How do I access Alice?
Alice is available inside KitchenPortal on the CCDFSM page. Look for the "Generate with Alice" card.
Alice is unlocked with a one-time payment of £25. Once unlocked, you can use Alice to generate your full CCDFSM. If your CCDFSM reaches 100% completion, you can start a fresh interview and generate a completely new version at any time for another £25 — useful if your kitchen has significantly changed.
There's no monthly subscription for Alice — the £25 unlocks her permanently for your account.
CompliChef subscribers who aren't yet on KitchenPortal can access Alice by signing up at portal.complichef.co.uk. Alice is available to all KitchenPortal accounts.
A word on GDPR and data privacy
Because Alice's interview covers details about how you run your food business, we ask for a simple data processing consent before the conversation begins. This covers how CompliChef uses your conversation data in line with UK GDPR. The consent takes a single click and is stored against your account.
We don't use your conversation data to train AI models. Your kitchen's information stays in your account.
The bottom line
Your CCDFSM is one of the most important documents your food business has. It's what an EHO inspects. It's what demonstrates your food safety culture. It's the written proof that you know how to run a safe kitchen.
For most businesses, filling it in properly has always been the hard part.
Alice fixes that.
**Fifteen minutes. Twelve questions. Thirteen sections — done.**If you're already on KitchenPortal, open your CCDFSM page and look for Alice today. If you're not yet a CompliChef customer, start your free trial and meet her yourself.
*Alice AI is included with all KitchenPortal plans. A one-time £25 unlock applies per CCDFSM generation. Alice is powered by leading AI language models and is designed to generate compliant, professional food safety documentation for UK businesses.*
