Quality & Continuous Improvement

Quality Records: What They Must Include and How to Keep Them

By Claudia · · 7 min read

Quality record sheet, gloves and thermometer on a stainless steel table

Quality Records: What They Must Include and How to Keep Them

The quality record is one of those elements that, on the surface, can look like a simple administrative formality. But anyone who's spent time working in food quality knows perfectly well that an audit is won or lost based on the state of your records. Having well-designed processes isn't enough if there's no documented evidence that they're applied day to day. This article explains what a good record-keeping system must include, the most common mistakes, and how to move to digital management without making your life harder.

What a quality record is, and why audits are won or lost because of them

A quality record is any document that provides objective evidence that an activity was carried out, a control was executed, or a result was obtained. In the food industry, these records are the backbone of the management system: without them, everything else — procedures, plans, protocols — becomes empty paper.

When an auditor arrives at your plant, they don't just evaluate what you tell them. They evaluate what you can prove. And the only way to prove a control was carried out correctly is to show the corresponding record, properly filled in, with a date, signature and result. As set out in Regulation (EC) 178/2002 on general food law (Regulation [EC] 178/2002, 2002), operators must be able to demonstrate the traceability of their products and identify any problem in the food chain. Without solid records, that's simply impossible to prove.

Beyond the audit, records carry huge operational value: they let you spot trends, anticipate problems and make decisions based on real data. A temperature deviation that shows up once in a record might look anecdotal; if it keeps recurring, it's a warning sign that should trigger a corrective action. That's only possible if the data is properly recorded and easy to review.

The records you can't skip: HACCP, process control, issues and non-conformities

When we talk about food quality records, there's a set of categories that are essential in any serious management system. Here are the most critical ones:

HACCP records. Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points requires every critical control point (CCP) to be documented. This includes the critical limits set, the measurements taken, the corrective actions applied when a deviation is detected, and system verification. Without these records, a HACCP plan has no legal or practical value. Regulation (EC) 852/2004 on the hygiene of foodstuffs (Regulation [EC] 852/2004, 2004) explicitly requires businesses to keep sufficient documentation proving the correct application of HACCP-based procedures.

Process control records. Storage and transport temperatures, times and temperatures of heat treatments, packaging parameters, allergen control, cleaning and disinfection... every one of these process controls must be logged on a regular basis, identifying who carried it out and what result was obtained.

Issue records. Any abnormal situation during production — a broken package, an equipment failure, visible contamination — must be logged even if it doesn't turn into a formal non-conformity. These records let you track situations that, taken together, can point to a systemic problem.

Non-conformity and corrective action records. When something goes wrong and is formally identified as a non-conformity, the whole cycle must be documented: description of the problem, root cause identified, corrective action applied, owner and deadline, and verification of effectiveness. This is one of the record types that gets the most attention in any audit, because it proves the system not only detects problems but actually resolves them.

On top of these, don't forget staff training records, equipment calibration records, approved supplier records and customer complaint records. A complete document management system ties all of these records together in a coherent, accessible way.

The problem with paper records: they get lost, filled in late, and can't be audited in real time

For years, the food industry has worked with paper records. Binders, control sheets, printed forms... it's a system that works, but it carries a set of problems that, over time, end up weighing too heavily.

The first is lost documents. A record that can't be found is a record that doesn't exist. During an audit, desperately searching for a temperature control sheet from three weeks ago is a situation no quality manager wants to live through.

The second problem is late entry. In busy production environments, it's common for operators to jot down their checks at the end of the shift, reconstructing from memory what happened hours earlier. That undermines data reliability and can create inconsistencies that an experienced auditor spots easily.

The third problem is the impossibility of auditing in real time. With paper records, the quality manager can only review what's happened once the paper is in front of them. They can't catch a deviation the moment it happens, or act preventively. Information arrives late — and sometimes it arrives wrong.

On top of that, there's the difficulty of analyzing historical data. Pulling trends out of hundreds of paper sheets is a tedious, error-prone manual job. Data-driven decision-making, which should be a priority in any modern quality system, becomes practically unworkable with this model.

How to switch to digital records without duplicating the document management work you already do

Moving to a digital quality record system doesn't have to be traumatic or mean starting from scratch. The key is digitizing the records you already keep without adding extra layers of bureaucracy.

The first step is mapping all your current records: what's logged, how often, who fills it in and where it's filed. This inventory exercise helps you spot duplicates, outdated records and gaps that need covering. If you want to go deeper into this process, check out our practical guide to food quality document management, where we walk through this approach step by step.

The second step is choosing a tool that fits the reality of the plant floor. There's no point rolling out sophisticated software if line operators can't use it comfortably from their workstation. Ideally you want a solution that lets people log data from mobile devices or tablets, with simple, intuitive forms, and that sends automatic alerts when a deviation occurs.

The third step, and maybe the most important one, is training the team. Resistance to change is one of the main obstacles in any digitization process. Quality managers need to clearly communicate the benefits of the new system: less time spent hunting for documents, real-time alerts, data always available for audits, and a global view of system status without digging through binders.

A well-implemented digital system centralizes every quality record format in a single environment, with full traceability of who logged what and when. This doesn't just simplify internal and external audits — it frees up the quality team's time for the work that actually adds value: analyzing, improving and preventing.

Record management isn't an end in itself. It's a tool in service of food safety and continuous improvement. And when that tool works well, the entire quality system gains in solidity and trust.

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