Restaurant health inspection apps have enabled single-location and multi-unit operators to centralize, analyze, and automate their internal inspection processes.
Health inspection tools allow users to build their inspection forms, assign them for other users to fill out, and schedule them at various frequencies.
The goal of these forms & checklists is to conduct a thorough review of the restaurant premises and capture images & issues that need to be escalated and fixed.
Restaurant health inspection apps are used to drive quality assurance, adhere to brand standards, drive continuous business improvement and prevent risks before they come to life.
A few examples of restaurant processes that can be facilitated through a restaurant health inspection app include:
- Quarterly multi-location in-person quality inspections and audits
- QA brand audits
- Daily kitchen safety protocols (opening & closing checklists)
- Refrigerator and freezer temperature logs
- Ingredient and inventory control logs
- Monthly “mock” internal inspections
- Image capture & escalated issues of broken furniture, equipment, or assets
- Automatic food temperature recordings via probe (example: raw / cooked meats)
- Food hygiene & quality checks
- Sanitization of guest eating areas
- Daily closing inspection checklists
- Regular bathroom cleaning checklists
- New hire health & safety training
Why Use a Restaurant Health Inspection App?
Restaurant owners have replaced paper & pencil processes and scattered spreadsheets with applications to distribute, record, and collect data from inspections along with tools to track the resolution of issues identified during inspections. If you were to catch and flag issues as a restaurant owner, before your patrons do, you cansecure your business, improve scalability and maintain an overall delightful customer experience.
Digital health inspection tools ensure accountability and completion of detailed procedures while delivering transparency and real-time communication.
Restaurant operators strive to provide a healthy & safe space for customers to enjoy their food and a health inspection app ensures that a restaurant’s employees meet this goal.
These tools eliminate paperwork in the restaurant & kitchen by storing checklist submission records in the cloud. You can easily search, find, print and email any historical audit through a health inspection app.
Historical audit & hygiene records generated from a health inspection app are critical for applying for/renewing insurance, internal tracking of compliance with governing body regulations & guidelines (FDA / HACCP), and communicating information & data points with external auditors/inspectors.
In the modern age of digital tools, third-party auditors now expect that restaurants have digitized HACCP Principles & Guidelines and health inspection forms for their employees to refer to (throw out the binders!), along with workflows to ensure failing control points are handled appropriately.
Every restaurant wants to score an A or 100 on its health inspection report. To prepare for an upcoming audit, managers can use a health inspection app to create recurring monthly and quarterly “mock” inspections and rectify any issues proactively.
Different countries and states provide different guidelines on what health code violations they look for. These key violation areas can be routinely tracked in a health inspection app. Without one, issues may get caught too late or when it is too costly.
10 Best Restaurant Health Inspection Apps For Food Businesses In 2024
Let's take a quick look at some of the best restaurant health inspection apps.
Afterward, we'll check out some of the important aspects of these applications to get a better understanding of how things pan out.
1. Xenia - Overall No. 1 Restaurant Health Inspection Software
Starting off with Xenia, as one of the best restaurant health inspection apps, the tool provides everything you need to get your business's inspection, health, and food safety compliance in order!
Think of it as a mobile-first solution with tons of features to take care of restaurant health related operations.
However, Xenia takes it a step further by offering managers full control of improving their restaurants' accountability through full access to BOH restauarnt management tools.
The company offers a customizable inspection builder, mobile-first inspection forms & task management, response-based conditional logic, real-time chats, staff training & policy / SOP writer, and advanced analytics & reporting. Xenia primarily serves individual and multi-location restaurants and hotels.
Key Features:
- Operations Templates: Customizable health inspection form builder, weighted scoring health & hygiene evaluations, geo stamp-based inspections, QR code-based access inspections & checklists, inspection template library
- Tasks & Work Orders: Advanced health inspection scheduling & task assignment engine
- Chats: DMs, group messaging, and inspection-related commenting threads. Pinpoint issues instantly and ensure transparency & accountability
- Reporting: Health inspection reports & analytics, multi-location access permissions & controls
- Corrective Actions: Build resolution workflows around health inspections, with conditional logic and track completion
- Temperature Monitoring: Mobile Bluetooth probe-based temperature synchronization, automatic and intermittent fridge & freezer temperature monitoring
Pricing:
- Free Forever: Everything free with limited access to basic features for up to 5 users
- Starter: $99 / month for 15 users
- Premium(Best Value): $199 / month for 15 users
- Custom: Need something tailored to your organization?
Available for up to 5 users
Premium for $99/month for the first 20 users (with free trial period)
Available on iOS, Android and Web
2. Leafe
Leafe provides restaurant managers to handle digitized HACCP records, food hygiene, and kitchen inventory while reducing food waste.
The company offers digital hygiene records & temperature recordings, opening/closing checklists, inventory management, and analytics. Leafe primarily serves hospitality, restaurant, and kitchen clients.
Key Features:
- Fridge and freezer temperature logging
- Compliance checklists
- Food temperature records
- Food wastage tracker
- Smart inventory management
- Menu management
Pricing:
- Basic: £31 per month
- Standard: £50 per month
- Pro: £120 per month
3. CoInspect
CoInspect provides a mobile application for managing food safety compliance.
The company offers restaurant daily checklists, manager logbook tools, and reporting. CoInspect primarily serves restaurants.
Key Features:
- Daily opening/closing checks
- Manager logbook
- Corporate audit workflows
- Food safety compliance workflows (HACCP/FDA)
- Performance trends dashboard
Pricing:
- Light: $25/location/month
- Enterprise: $50/location/month
4. GoSpotCheck
GoSpotCheck provides in-the-field execution software for frontline teams.
The Company offers daily task management, mobile restaurant audits, and training tools. GoSpotCheck primarily serves clients across the retail, construction, and restaurant sectors.
Key Features:
- Mobile task management
- Photo management
- Mobile temperature capture
- Quality assurance analytics
Pricing:
- Essentials: Contact sales
- Pro: Contact sales
- Enterprise: Contact sales
5. GoAudits
GoAudits provides a mobile auditing platform to conduct internal audits, self-inspections, and compliance checks.
The company enables restaurant managers to perform health & safety risk assessments, HACCP compliance, and ISO quality & safety checks.
GoAudits serves the retail, hospitality, construction, and healthcare industries.
Key Features:
- Schedule & assign audits
- Mobile auditing forms
- Customizable checklist builder
- Corrective actions
- Task management
- Reporting & insights dashboards
- Inspection template library
Pricing:
- Starter: $12 per user/month
- Enterprise: $35 per user/month
6. FoodCode-Pro
FoodCode-Pro provides retail food safety inspection software solutions.
They offer a mobile platform built around the FDA Food Code to help restaurants manage FDA compliance, hygiene, and sanitation.
The company primarily serves different businesses working in health departments, colleges, and universities.
Key Features:
- FDA-compliant inspection checklists
- 3D code search for FDA and state supplements
- Tablet app
- Reporting
Pricing:
- Contact sales
7. Qvalon
Qvalon provides automated solutions for store audits and staff management.
This program comes with checklist-based tools for monitoring operational processes, task management, and surveys.
Qvalonmainly serves businesses in the retail and restaurant industries.
Key Features:
- Customizable checklist builder
- Templates
- Weighted scoring
- Geo-positional controls
- Mobile app
Pricing:
- Standard: $35/store/month
- Premium: $50/store/month
- Enterprise: Contact sales
8. 1st Reporting
1st Reporting provides incident reporting and inspection tools for field teams.
These solutions enable organizations to implement workplace health & safety procedures, generate customizable inspection checklists, and extract insights from critical data.
The business operates in the construction, utilities, and restaurant industries eco-system.
Key Features:
- Customizable form builder
- Workflow automations builder
- Inspection & incident reporting
- Employee handbook
- KPI tracking & reports
- Alerts & notifications
Pricing:
- Essentials: $10 per user/month
- Enterprise: Contact sales
9. Intouch Insight
Intouch Insight provides inspection, customer experience, and mystery shopper / operational audit solutions for multi-location brands.
The platform enables restaurant owners to manage inspections and collect data across multiple locations.
The company primarily serves the restaurant, petro-convenience, retail, and hospitality industries.
Key Features:
- Drag and drop inspection checklist editor
- Question scoring
- SOP manager
- Surveys
- Customer experience insights tool
- Analytics & reporting
Pricing:
- Per Use: 2 free submissions per month, $0.99 per additional submission
- Per User: $17 per user/month, unlimited submissions
10. Snappii
Lastly, on our restaurant health inspection apps list, we've got Snappi provides food safety and health inspection solutions.
This tool specifically focuses on mobile and tablet-based applications to enable food service providers and kitchen/restaurant staff to conduct food service inspections on the go.
Snappi primarily serves the healthcare, food service, and restaurant industries.
Key Features:
- Customizable mobile inspection forms
- Optical field recognition for building vertical forms
- Barcode scanning
- PDF reports
Pricing:
- Per Use: 2 free submissions per month, $0.99 per additional submission
- Per User: $17 per user/month, unlimited submissions
How to Evaluate a Restaurant Health Inspection Application?
A major problem faced by restaurant owners is the administrative burden (and stacks of paper!) of managing & tracking upcoming health inspections, in progress, and completed along with the critical issues identified that need to be resolved. A centralized tool can eliminate the need for paper documentation of audits.
Managers no longer have to chase after an employee to complete a checklist. Health inspection apps automate status tracking and trigger overdue notifications to ensure no task gets missed. No need to print these audit reports either. With a health inspection app, you can easily share reports via PDF/email.
When evaluating a vendor, it is important to consider not only the user experience of completing checklists and forms (easier to use = easier to adhere to daily) but also the process of escalating issues and tracking their resolution. It is critical to select a vendor that offers a powerful task ‘status’ tracking application integrated with the inspection checklist experience.
After enough data is amassed inside the app, these insights are typically summarized on a reporting dashboard available on most health inspection web apps. These tools drive significant process optimization improvements for restaurants by making it easier for managers & frontline staff to communicate about quality & safety issues on the premises.
Before audit records, reports, and insights can be gathered from a restaurant health inspection app, all checklists, procedures, and forms need to be digitized or migrated into the platform.
When selecting a vendor, it is important to evaluate the ease of use of the checklist/form builder. These builders should allow you to build very customized processes & inspections.
At a minimum, these form builders need to offer a plethora of customizable response types (number, temperature, multi-choice questions, stamp, signature step type… to name a few), drag & drop user interfaces, advanced sharing, weighted scoring, and automations / logic.
Try Xenia, or Try them All to Find the Right Fit for Your Team.
The list we went through today was just a sample of the restaurant health inspection apps in the market.
There are a ton of options to choose from and it can often feel overwhelming - that’s why we hope this guide will help you finalize your decision in choosing the right tool.
You can create a free account with Xenia here, or get in touch with our team to schedule a demo here.
Our team of experts are available around the clock, so reach out and we’ll help you wherever you are in the process.
Thanks for reading, and good luck with your search!