Receiving log
The door is the cheapest place to catch a problem
Food that sat on a warm truck has already used up part of its safe life, and you cannot get that time back. Five minutes at the door with a probe is worth more than anything you can do afterwards. Here is what to check and when to say no.
Free to build. You see the whole thing before anything is asked of you.
01The numbers
Four limits, and one of them has a clock.
Cold TCS 41°F or below · Hot TCS 135°F or above · Shell eggs 45°F ambient · Milk 45°F, then 41°F within 4 hours
FDA Food Code §3-202.11
The milk rule is the one that surprises people: two numbers and a four-hour window, where everything else has a single limit.
02Why bother
You cannot give the time back.
Every TCS food has a budget of safe time at temperature. A pallet that spent two hours on a warm truck has already spent part of it before it reaches your door.
Nothing you do afterwards refunds that. The cooler will bring the temperature down; it will not undo the hours. That is the whole reason to check at the door rather than after it has been put away.
03Doing it properly
Probe the load, check the box, then decide.
- 1
Probe between packages, or open one
Not the trailer air. A refrigerated truck reads cold at the door while the middle of the pallet is a different story.
- 2
Look at the packaging as hard as the temperature
Dented cans, torn bags, wet cardboard. Ice crystals in frozen goods that suggest it thawed and was refrozen on the way.
- 3
Check labels and tags
Animal food arriving unlabelled, or shellfish without a tag, is refused regardless of how cold it is.
- 4
Reject at the door — it is much cheaper than later
Once it is in the walk-in it is your problem, your space and your paperwork.
- 5
Write it down and tell the supplier the same day
The item, the reading, the decision. Same-day contact is what stops it becoming a pattern.
04What one looks like
With your suppliers already in it.
| Date | Supplier | Item | Temp | Pkg OK? | Accepted / Rejected | Action | Init |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 14 Sep | Northside Provisions | Chicken thighs, 20 kg | 39°F | Y | Accepted | — | RM |
| 14 Sep | Northside Provisions | Whole milk, 6×4 L | 44°F | Y | Accepted | To cooler 09:10, 41°F by 11:00 | RM |
| 16 Sep | Harbour Shellfish Co. | Oysters, 100ct | — | N | Rejected | No tag on sack. Supplier told 16 Sep. | RM |
05The honest test
A log with no rejections is not a good log.
It feels like a clean record. It reads as a delivery diary — a list of things that arrived, rather than evidence that anybody was deciding.
Over a year, something arrives warm, something arrives dented, something arrives without a tag. A log that captures those, and what you did, is doing the job. A log that captures none of them suggests the probe stayed in the drawer.
06Being straight with you
Why this one is built rather than downloaded.
Why there’s no blank one to download
A blank receiving log genuinely works — this is the most borderline sheet on the site, and it is worth saying so rather than pretending otherwise.
It is here because the log’s real job is checking arrivals against your approved supplier list, and because writing the same six supplier names forty times a week is how a good habit dies. Built from your plan, the names and items are already there and receiving becomes a temperature and a tick.
If you would rather have a blank grid today, the free printable logs include everything else you need at the door — fridge, freezer and corrective action.
07Getting it wrong
What an inspector notices.
No rejections, ever
Reads as a log of arrivals rather than a control. Over a year, something should have been turned away.
Temperatures that are all identical
Different suppliers, different trucks, different times of day. Identical numbers suggest a pen rather than a probe.
A supplier on the log who is not on the approved list
The two documents are supposed to check each other. One contradicting the other is worse than either alone.
Milk logged at 44°F with no follow-up
45°F at the door is fine, but the four-hour cool to 41°F needs its own note. Without it the entry is only half a record.
08Questions
The things people ask.
What temperature should deliveries arrive at?
Cold food that needs temperature control: 41°F or below. Hot food: 135°F or above. Shell eggs are a special case — 45°F ambient air, then into 41°F refrigeration promptly.
What's the rule for milk?
This is the one almost nobody knows. Milk may arrive at 45°F or below, and then has to be cooled to 41°F or below within four hours. Two numbers and a clock, where everything else has one number.
Where do I put the probe?
In the load, between packages or into a product you are prepared to open. Not in the truck's air — a refrigerated trailer reads beautifully cold at the door while the pallet in the middle tells a different story.
My log has no rejections in it. Is that good?
It usually means rejecting is not really happening. A receiving log that only records arrivals is a delivery diary, not a control. Rejecting is the point of standing at the door with a thermometer.
What else do I reject besides temperature?
Damaged packaging — dented cans, torn bags, boxes that have been wet. Frozen food with ice crystals that suggest it thawed and was refrozen. And any animal food that arrives unlabelled or, for shellfish, untagged. That last one is refused regardless of how cold it is.
The driver leaves it at the back door before we open.
Then nobody checked it, and you have no idea what temperature it arrived at or how long it sat there. That is worth fixing with the supplier rather than logging around — an unattended delivery cannot be verified at all.
Your suppliers and the items they bring, already on the sheet — so the door check is a probe and a tick.
It works against the approved supplier list, and rejections belong on the corrective action log.