What Does a MEHKO Home Kitchen Inspection Check? The Full Checklist

Before the inspector arrives

The inspection is scheduled after your application and Standard Operating Procedures are approved, so the inspector already knows your menu. Their job is to confirm the kitchen matches what you wrote. Have these ready on the counter:

• Your approved SOP (printed)
• Your Food Protection Manager certificate
• A calibrated probe thermometer (digital, $10–$20)
• Sanitizer test strips for whatever you use (chlorine or quat)
• Your menu with ingredient lists
• Labels or a label template with allergen information

The checklist, area by area

Temperature control

• Refrigerator at 41°F or below; freezer at 0°F. A cheap appliance thermometer inside the fridge is expected.
• A probe thermometer for cooking temperatures: poultry 165°F, ground meat 155°F, whole cuts and fish 145°F, reheating 165°F.
• Hot holding at 135°F or above if you hold anything before pickup.
• You can explain the cooling rule: 135°F to 70°F within 2 hours, then to 41°F within 4 more — even though same-day service means you rarely cool and reheat.

Handwashing

• A sink for handwashing with hot and cold running water, soap, and single-use paper towels (not a cloth towel). Your kitchen sink is fine.
• You wash hands before starting, after handling raw meat, after touching your face or phone, after taking out trash.

Cleaning and sanitizing

• A working method to wash, rinse, and sanitize: a dishwasher with a sanitizing cycle, or the sink plus a sanitizer basin.
• Sanitizer at the correct strength — chlorine bleach at 50–100 ppm (about 1 tablespoon per gallon), or a quat sanitizer at label strength — with test strips to prove it.
• Clean, non-absorbent food-contact surfaces. Cutting boards without deep grooves.

Food storage

• Raw meat, poultry, and seafood stored below ready-to-eat food in the fridge, in sealed containers.
• Dry goods in sealed containers, off the floor, not under the sink.
• MEHKO ingredients separated from your household's food — a dedicated shelf or bin is the usual solution.
• Everything from an approved source: grocery stores, restaurant suppliers, farmers markets. No home-canned ingredients, no wild game, no foraged mushrooms.
• Nothing past its date; nothing thawed on the counter.

The kitchen itself

• No pets in the kitchen during food prep or service. They can live in the house; they can't be in the room while you operate.
• No evidence of pests — droppings, gnaw marks, fruit flies. Screens on open windows.
• Adequate lighting, trash with a lid, and no personal items (medication, phone chargers, mail) on food-prep surfaces.
• Hair restraint available; no bare-hand contact with ready-to-eat food (gloves or utensils).
• Water from a public utility, or a passing well test if on a private well.

Paperwork and operations

• Permit displayed once issued (some counties, like Contra Costa, require it visible at the home).
• A way to track meals per day and per week — a notebook or the order history from your platform — to show you're within the 30/day, 90/week limits.
• Allergen information available to customers for every item.
• Customer disclosure that food is made in a home kitchen (your platform handles this if it's a CDPH-registered intermediary).

The most common reasons people fail the first visit

1. Fridge running warm — many home fridges sit at 43–45°F. Turn it down a week before and verify with a thermometer.
2. No paper towels at the sink — the cloth hand towel is the number-one write-up.
3. No sanitizer test strips — the inspector wants to see you measure, not guess.
4. Raw chicken on the top shelf over the salad greens.
5. The dog in the kitchen when the inspector walks in.
6. Menu drift — cooking things that aren't in the SOP. Update the SOP before you add dishes.