Commercial Cooking — Hot Surfaces / Sharps SWMS
SWMS template for commercial cooking — hot surfaces / sharps. Covers Front-of-house and back-of-house cooking ops.. 8-state AU coverage, CIH-reviewed editable DOCX, available as an instant download.
SWMS variants reference your state’s WHS legislation. Instant download after payment.
Commercial cooking operations across hotels, restaurants, institutional kitchens, catering facilities and quick-service venues expose workers to a concentrated cluster of thermal, mechanical, chemical and ergonomic hazards during every shift. Open flames, deep fryers holding oil at 180°C, induction surfaces, char-grills, salamanders, combi-ovens and pressurised steamers operate in close proximity to sharpened knives, mandolines, mechanical slicers and bone saws on wet, often crowded floors. Under WHS Regulation 2025 and the model Work Health and Safety Act, a PCBU operating any commercial kitchen must identify foreseeable hazards, apply the hierarchy of control and document safe work procedures before workers commence cooking, plating, cleaning or close-down tasks. A Safe Work Method Statement formalises that risk assessment, captures pre-start consultation with chefs and kitchen-hands, and provides the evidentiary record regulators and insurers expect following burns, lacerations or slip incidents. This SWMS template covers both front-of-house pass operations and back-of-house preparation across all eight Australian jurisdictions.
Hazards identified
7 hazards covered, sorted by priority.
Partial and full-thickness burns requiring debridement, skin grafting, extended absence and potential permanent scarring or contracture
Deep tendon and nerve lacerations to fingers and hands causing permanent loss of grip strength and dexterity
Falls causing fractures, head strikes against benching and potential contact burns if falling toward cooking surfaces
Scalds to face, chest and forearms requiring emergency cooling, hospitalisation and time off for wound management
Reduced cognitive performance, slower hazard recognition, dehydration and increased likelihood of burn or laceration incidents
Acute lumbar strain, rotator cuff injury and chronic musculoskeletal disorders affecting long-term work capacity
Chemical burns to skin, conjunctival injury and respiratory irritation from aerosolised alkaline cleaning agents
Control measures
Hierarchy-of-controls order: elimination → substitution → isolation → engineering → administrative → PPE.
- 1Elimination — Remove unnecessary open-flame cooking by transitioning suitable menu items to induction or combi-oven programs, eliminating naked-flame exposure on the pass entirely.
- 2Elimination — Decommission damaged or guard-missing mechanical slicers and mandolines from service immediately and isolate from the production floor pending repair or disposal.
- 3Substitution — Replace solvent-based degreasers with lower-hazard enzymatic kitchen cleaners and substitute heavy stockpots with split-pot or tilting bratt-pan systems where menu allows.
- 4Substitution — Use cut-resistant prep gloves rated EN388 Level 5 in place of bare-hand technique during high-volume mandoline, peeling and oyster shucking tasks.
- 5Engineering — Install commercial-grade anti-slip flooring or bonded matting around fryers, dishwash and walk-in entries, maintained per AS 4586 slip-resistance classifications.
- 6Engineering — Fit fryers with lid interlocks, oil-level alarms and dedicated filtration carts so hot oil is never decanted manually into open buckets during change-out.
- 7Administrative — Conduct documented pre-shift briefings using this SWMS, rotate cookline positions every two hours to manage heat strain, and enforce two-person lifts above 16kg.
- 8Administrative — Implement knife-handling rules including walk-with-blade-down, never-catch-falling-knife and dedicated knife storage in magnetised racks or sheath blocks away from sinks.
- 9PPE — Issue heat-resistant aprons, long-cuff oven mitts rated to 250°C, closed non-slip kitchen footwear compliant with AS/NZS 2210.3, and splash goggles for chemical decant tasks.
- 10PPE — Provide cut-resistant sleeves and gloves for slicer cleaning, chemical-resistant nitrile gloves for sanitiser handling, and ensure all PPE is inspected and replaced when damaged.
Applicable Codes of Practice
Establishes the mandatory risk management process — identify, assess, control, review — that underpins every SWMS entry for hot surface and sharps exposure.
Applies to fryers, slicers, combi-ovens and dishwashers — requires guarding, isolation procedures and operator competency before use under WHS Reg Part 5.1.
Specifies the slip-resistance and impact-protection performance criteria for kitchen footwear selected as PPE under the hierarchy of control.
Triggered by repetitive knife work, stockpot lifting and overhead reach to shelving — requires task design review and worker consultation.
High-Risk Construction Work triggered
Cookline operations involve fryer oil at 180°C, combi-oven steam release and char-grill surfaces above 300°C in routine daily contact with workers.
Daily use of chef knives, mandolines, mechanical slicers and bone saws creates ongoing laceration risk requiring documented controls and operator competency records.
Extended kitchen shifts in high-ambient-temperature environments meet the fatigue-risk criterion, amplifying burn and sharps incident likelihood across the shift.
PCBUs must consult workers, document the SWMS, retain it for two years from completion (or the duration of any incident investigation), and produce it on inspector demand. Penalties for failure are substantial and indexed; current maximum follows the prevailing WHS schedule for the jurisdiction.
Who this is for
- →Head chefs and sous chefs in commercial kitchens
- →Catering company directors and operations managers
- →Hotel and club food and beverage managers
- →Aged care and hospital kitchen supervisors
What you receive
- ✓Editable DOCX template — Microsoft Word compatible
- ✓State-specific WHS legislation schedule (NSW/VIC/QLD/SA/WA/TAS/NT/ACT)
- ✓Hazard register with risk ratings + hierarchy-of-control mapping
- ✓Worker sign-on register, pre-start checklist, and incident escalation flow
Worked example
At a 180-cover regional pub bistro preparing for Saturday service, the sous chef opens the shift at 3:30pm with a 12-minute pre-start brief using this SWMS displayed on the kitchen tablet. The team — two line cooks, one apprentice, one kitchenhand — works through the hazard register: the apprentice flags that the left fryer thermostat was reading erratically during yesterday's lunch. Referring to the engineering controls section, the sous chef isolates the fryer at the wall, tags it out, and reassigns its menu items to the combi-oven program listed under the elimination control. Cut-resistant gloves are issued for the evening's confit potato mandoline prep. Each worker signs the SWMS sign-on register on the tablet, including the casual kitchenhand starting their second shift. Mid-service at 7:45pm, a stockpot boil-over scalds the line cook's forearm; the supervisor activates the burn first-aid response documented in the administrative controls, runs cool water for twenty minutes, and logs the incident. At close-down, the team reviews the SWMS and adds a note that the stockpot in question should be moved to the rear burner permanently — a control improvement that is captured in the document's review log and circulated to the head chef before the next trading day.
Related legislation
- WHS Act 2011 (model)
- WHS Regulation 2025
- Combustible Dust CoP; AS/NZS 4024 — Safety of machinery