IFS Food Version 8
IFS Food visitors: what Version 8 asks you to show about visitors and contractors
Your auditor signs your visitor book before they look at anything else, and the requirement they are thinking about while they do it is KO number 3: the personal hygiene requirements understood and applied by all relevant personnel, contractors and visitors. This page quotes that requirement and the four around it from the Standard itself, says what a KO is in its own words, and says what an iPad at the door records towards each.
Sign in on a demonstration kiosk, then open the fire roll call on your phone. Do not enter real details: everything typed is deleted within the hour.
From £150 a month plus VAT, iPad and stand included. We are not auditors or consultants.
In Ireland or elsewhere in the EU? The installed kiosk on this page is sold in the UK. For EU sites: the same software on an iPad you already own, with the record kept in the EU, from €179 a month.
What the Standard asks
One KO requirement that names visitors, and four that reach the same door
Version 8 puts visitors in three places: section 3.2, personal hygiene, where the KO sits; section 4.21, food defence, which asks for a policy of access; and section 4.19, allergens, which counts visitors as a source of risk. None of them asks for a visitor book by name.
Requirement 3.2.2, KO N° 3
Personal hygiene, understood and applied by visitors
KO N° 3: The requirements for personal hygiene shall be understood and applied by all relevant personnel, contractors and visitors.
One of the ten KO requirements, and the one that names visitors. Understood is the half a record can evidence: what the visitor was shown and that they accepted it. Applied is supervision, and 3.2.3 asks that compliance be monitored with a frequency based on risks, but at least once within a 3-month period.
Requirement 3.2.1
What the hygiene requirements have to cover
Risk-based requirements relating to personal hygiene shall be documented, implemented and maintained and shall include, at a minimum, the following areas: hair and beards; protective clothing (including their conditions of use in staff facilities); hand washing, disinfection and hygiene; eating, drinking, smoking/vaping or other use of tobacco; actions to be taken in case of cuts or skin abrasions; fingernails, jewellery, false nails/eyelashes and personal belongings (including medicines); notification of infectious diseases and conditions impacting food safety via a medical screening procedure.
The list your visitor declaration is written from. The last item is the one that has to be dealt with before somebody goes in rather than filed after, and the Standard leaves the form of the medical screening procedure to you.
Requirement 4.21.2
The food defence plan and the policy of access
A food defence procedure and plan shall be documented, implemented and maintained to identify potential threats and define food defence measures. This shall include, at a minimum: legal requirements; identification of critical areas and/or practices and policy of access by employees, visitors and contractors; how to manage external inspections and regulatory visits; any other appropriate control measures.
The policy of access is yours to write. A record of who was in the building, when, who let them in and what they accepted at the door is how a policy of access becomes something an auditor can test rather than read. The Standard prints the list as bullet points; the punctuation here is ours.
Requirement 4.19.2
Allergen cross contamination from visitors
Risk-based measures shall be implemented and maintained from receipt to dispatch, to ensure that potential cross contamination of products by allergens is minimised. The potential cross contamination risks shall be considered, related to, at a minimum: environment; transport; storage; raw materials; personnel (including contractors and visitors). Implemented measures shall be monitored.
The allergen clause names contractors and visitors as a source of risk. The measure most sites take is a rule, no food brought in, no eating outside the canteen, told before entry. Told is what a record shows.
Requirement 3.2.3
Monitored, at least quarterly
Compliance with personal hygiene requirements shall be monitored with a frequency based on risks, but at least once within a 3-month period.
The applied half of KO 3. No sign in system does this. It is worth stating plainly, because a record of acceptance is often mistaken for a record of compliance, and an IFS auditor will not make that mistake.
Quoted from IFS Food, Version 8, April 2023, English, read on 26 September 2026. The Standard says version 8 audits have been mandatory since 1 January 2024. Nothing in it tells you to buy anything: a paper sheet that is genuinely filled in every time can evidence that the hygiene requirements reached a visitor. What paper struggles with is showing, a year on, exactly which wording a contractor accepted before they went in, and the date last quarter the auditor asks about.
At the door
What the kiosk records towards each requirement
The same iPad every site gets, showing your hygiene requirements. On an IFS site the declaration is the point: a name and a time is a log, and a name, a time and an accepted set of hygiene requirements is the understood half of KO 3.
The hygiene requirements, shown and accepted before entry
Your personal hygiene requirements under 3.2.1, in your own wording, on the iPad at sign in: hair and beards, protective clothing, hand washing, eating and smoking, cuts, jewellery and personal belongings, and the medical screening declaration. The visitor reads it and accepts it before the sign in completes, or presses Go Back and speaks to their host.
No questions, no stored answers
The kiosk asks nothing and stores no answers. It records that this person accepted this exact wording at this time, with the wording fingerprinted so it can be shown after you change it. A medical screening procedure that asks questions and records a decision is a paper or host step, and the health questionnaire template on this site is written for it.
The policy of access, as a record
Name, company, the person they came to see, a vehicle registration if they gave one, the time in and the time out. Filter by date, by company or by host and export it as a file that opens without our software. Who was on site on the day of a complaint stops being a question about a handwriting sample.
A roll call that includes contractors
Everyone signed in on the kiosk is on a live list readable from any phone at the assembly point. A courier who only uses the delivery drop-off is logged as a delivery, not as a person on site, so drivers who go beyond goods in should sign in.
The kiosk does not make a site compliant, certified or audit ready. It produces a timestamped record for the requirements named on this page, and the auditor decides what that record is worth.
The visitor management kiosk in fullThe food sector page, without the requirement numbersFree visitor health questionnaire template, for the medical screening procedureThe same page for BRCGS Issue 9The same page for SALSA Issue 7Our security and sub-processors
On the day
Five things an IFS auditor asks at reception, and where the answers come from
None of these is difficult if the record exists. One of them the kiosk does not answer at all, and it is listed anyway.
- How do visitors and contractors understand your personal hygiene requirements?The requirements are on the screen at sign in, in your wording, and each person accepted them by name with the time. The acceptance and the exact wording are stored with the visit.
- Show me your policy of access for visitors and contractors.Your food defence plan, and beside it the record of who was let in, by whom and when.
- Who was on site on the day of this complaint?A list filtered to that day, exported to a file the auditor can keep.
- How do you monitor compliance with the hygiene requirements?Your own monitoring records under 3.2.3. The kiosk does not do this, and the page says so.
- What happens when nobody is at the front desk?The visitor still signs in and accepts the requirements, and their host is told by name in Microsoft Teams or Slack.
See the sign in
A visitor signs in, and the roll call it feeds, in 100 seconds
The sign in that records the accepted hygiene requirements is the same one that puts the visitor on the fire roll call. One action at the door, two records.
The player loads from YouTube only when you press play. Nothing is sent to Google before that. What happens when you do.
Before you ask
The questions IFS sites ask on the first call
What is a KO requirement in IFS Food?
The Standard says there are specific requirements in the IFS Food Standard which are named KO requirements, that these requirements are essential and address key topics to be implemented by the production site to reach compliance, and lists ten of them. Chart 4 scores a KO requirement that is not implemented as D, a KO non-conformity, which subtracts 50% of the possible total amount, and the certificate cannot be issued. 3.2.2, personal hygiene understood and applied by all relevant personnel, contractors and visitors, is KO number 3.
Does IFS Food require a visitor book?
No requirement asks for one by name. 4.21.2 asks the food defence plan to include a policy of access by employees, visitors and contractors, and 3.2.2 asks that the hygiene requirements be understood by visitors. Both are easier to evidence with a record of who came in, when, and what they accepted at the door, which is why most IFS sites keep one, on paper or otherwise. What your auditor accepts as evidence for either is their decision.
Does the kiosk run the medical screening procedure?
No. It shows your declaration, including the notification of infectious diseases line 3.2.1 asks for, and records that the visitor accepted it, with the wording and the time. It does not ask questions or store an account of anybody’s symptoms, so special category health data stays out of the system. If your medical screening procedure asks questions and records a decision, that is a paper or host step, and the paper questionnaire template on this site has the questions and a host’s sign off.
Which version of IFS Food is current?
Version 8, dated April 2023. The Standard says version 8 audits were possible from 1 October 2023 and mandatory from 1 January 2024. The requirement numbers on this page are version 8’s. IFS also publishes a Doctrine for version 8 with clarifications, updated from time to time, which this page does not draw on.
Is accepting the rules on a screen enough for “understood and applied”?
It evidences understood: the visitor was shown your requirements and accepted them, and you can show which wording and when. Applied is something an auditor observes and that 3.2.3 asks you to monitor at least once in every three months. A record of acceptance is not a record of compliance, and we would rather say that here than have you find out in an audit.
We hold BRCGS as well. Is this the same record?
Yes. The record is the same whichever scheme you certify to: who was here, when, who they saw, and the exact wording they accepted. What changes is the wording you put on the screen, which is written per site. The BRCGS page on this site covers Issue 9 clause 4.1.4 and the clauses around it, and the SALSA page covers Issue 7.
Being straight with you
What this does not do
- We are not a certification body, an IFS auditor or a food safety consultancy. This is general information about a published standard, not certification advice.
- The IFS Food version 8 Doctrine, which clarifies how requirements are assessed, was not read for this page. The page quotes the Standard and stops there.
- Five requirements out of the Standard. Your HACCP plan, your specifications, your traceability and your allergen management are still yours, and the auditor spends most of the day on them.
- The kiosk records that somebody accepted your requirements. Monitoring that they applied them, which 3.2.3 asks for at least quarterly, is a supervision task, and no software does it.
- The kiosk lives at reception, on the office side of the hygiene barrier. It is a consumer tablet in a stand, not a washdown-rated device.
- If your auditor has raised a deviation or a non-conformity, bring their wording to the call and we will tell you honestly whether this closes it.
Sources
Check any of this yourself
- IFS Food Version 8, April 2023, EnglishThe Standard itself, published by IFS Management GmbH and downloadable without a login. Every requirement on this page is quoted from it. Read 26 September 2026.
- Food Standards Agency, managing food safetyThe statutory baseline underneath the scheme, which applies whether or not you are certified.
General information about a published standard, not certification advice. Requirement numbers move between versions; confirm against your own copy of the Standard.
Also asked of sites like yours
The other things somebody may ask you to evidence
Each of these is a page about one standard, one duty or one visitor, written the same way as this one: what it actually asks for, what an iPad at reception records towards it, and where it does not help.
Every standard on one page: the clause numbers, the version and the date each was read, on one printable table.
- GDPR and the visitor book
- CMMC physical security
- List X visitor control
- ITAR visitor log
- Def Stan 05-138 visitor access
- ISO 27001 visitor access
- PCI DSS visitor log
- AEO visitor access control
- CTPAT visitor log
- TISAX visitor management
- TAPA FSR visitor log
- BRCGS visitor control
- BRCGS packaging visitor control
- BRCGS storage and distribution visitors
- BRCGS unannounced audit
- Visitor control non-conformity
- SALSA visitor control
- UFAS feed mill visitor control
- GMP visitors in production areas
- GDP wholesale visitor control
- Fire roll call
- Contractor management
- Construction work in occupied premises
- HSE inspection records
- ISO 45001 contractor control
- Visitor NDA sign in
- Visitor record retention
- What a visitor log must contain
- Standards calendar
- Sign in sheet template
- Visitor health questionnaire template
- Contractor induction template
- Permit to work template
- Hot work permit template
- Fire drill record template
Advise sites on this standard? Referral terms are on one page.
Next step
Tell us what your auditor said about reception
Fifteen minutes on the phone. How many people come through the door in a week, what your hygiene requirements say today, and what your last audit scored at the front desk. We will tell you straight whether a kiosk closes any of it.
Book a 15 minute callNo site visit needed and nothing to install. If it is not a fit we will say so on the call.
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