Color-coded cutting board chart for a restaurant kitchen, with a cleaning and replacement log
A prep cook breaks down chicken on a white board, gives it a quick wipe, and slices tomatoes for the lunch line on the same board ten minutes later. Nobody meant any harm. Color-coded boards make that mistake obvious: if the tomatoes are on a yellow board, someone will notice.
This post gives you a color chart to print, a plan for where each color lives, the Food Code rules behind it, and a weekly log for checking and replacing boards.
General information. Your state or local health department enforces its own edition of the Food Code. Section numbers below are from the FDA Food Code 2026.
The colors are a house rule, not a law
The Food Code doesn't tell you which color goes with which food. What it requires is that raw animal food is kept apart from ready-to-eat food, and that boards are cleaned and sanitized between them. Colors are simply the easiest way to make that happen on a busy line.
The scheme below is a common one, and boards in these colors are easy to buy. If your kitchen already uses another scheme, keep yours: what matters is that every station uses the same one, and it's on the wall.
The chart
Print it large, laminate it, and hang it above the prep tables and the dish area.
[Café / restaurant name] — Cutting boards
Color | Use it for | Never for |
|---|---|---|
Red | Raw beef, pork, lamb | Anything ready to eat |
Yellow | Raw poultry | Anything ready to eat |
Blue | Raw fish and seafood | Anything ready to eat |
Green | Fruit and vegetables | Raw meat, poultry or fish |
Brown | Cooked meats | Raw meat, poultry or fish |
White | Bread, dairy, cheese | Raw meat, poultry or fish |
Purple | Allergen-free orders | Anything else, ever |
Every board, every time: wash, rinse and sanitize it between jobs, and at least every 4 hours when it's in use. A scored board goes to [the kitchen manager], not back on the rack.
The purple board is a house practice many kitchens use for allergy orders: one board, one knife, used only for an order flagged with an allergy. It works with the procedure in our food allergy order ticket post and the allergen matrix. A purple board doesn't make a dish allergen-free by itself; the clean gloves, the clean knife and the separate fryer still matter.
The rules behind the colors
Rule | What the Food Code says | Section |
|---|---|---|
Keep raw animal food apart | Raw animal food is separated from raw ready-to-eat food, cooked ready-to-eat food, and fruit and vegetables before they're washed. | §3-302.11(A)(1) |
Keep types of raw meat apart | Beef, fish, lamb, pork and poultry are separated from each other by separate equipment, arranging them so they don't cross-contaminate, or preparing them at different times or places. | §3-302.11(A)(2) |
Clean between types of raw meat | Food-contact surfaces and utensils are cleaned "before each use with a different type of raw animal FOOD such as beef, FISH, lamb, pork, or POULTRY", except when moving to a meat or poultry that needs a higher cooking temperature. | §4-602.11(A)(1), (B) |
Clean between raw and ready to eat | "Each time there is a change from working with raw FOODS to working with READY-TO-EAT FOODS." | §4-602.11(A)(2) |
Clean between produce and TCS food | Between uses with raw fruit and vegetables and with time/temperature control for safety food. | §4-602.11(A)(3) |
Clean when it may be contaminated | "At any time during the operation when contamination may have occurred." | §4-602.11(A)(5) |
Every 4 hours | Food-contact surfaces used with TCS food are cleaned "throughout the day at least every four hours", with a few exceptions (such as prep in a refrigerated room, on a schedule set by its temperature). | §4-602.11(C), (D) |
Sanitize after cleaning | Utensils and food-contact surfaces are sanitized before use after cleaning. | §4-702.11 |
Scored boards | Boards that are scratched and scored are "resurfaced if they can no longer be effectively cleaned and SANITIZED, or discarded if they are not capable of being resurfaced." | §4-501.12 |
Wood boards | Wood isn't allowed as a food-contact surface, except hard maple or an equally hard, close-grained wood for cutting boards and blocks. | §4-101.17(A), (B) |
Clean means wash, rinse and sanitize, in the dish machine or the three-compartment sink, then air-dry. A wipe with a sanitizer cloth between jobs is not the same as washing the board; our dish machine and three-compartment sink log and sanitizer bucket procedure cover both.
Where each color lives
Boards drift. A board map keeps the right colors where the work is, and makes a missing board easy to spot.
Station | Colors kept there | How many | Stored |
|---|---|---|---|
Prep table 1 (proteins) | Red, yellow, blue | [2 each] | Vertical rack under the table |
Prep table 2 (produce) | Green | [3] | Vertical rack |
Line, cold side | Green, brown, white | [1 each] | Rack at the end of the line |
Bakery / pastry | White | [2] | Rack by the bench |
Allergy board | Purple | [1, with its own knife] | Its own labeled spot, [in a bag on the shelf above expo] |
Dish area | Spares, one of each color | [1 each] | Rack beside the clean side |
Store them upright in a rack so they dry and don't sit wet on top of each other. Never store a raw-meat board above a produce board.
Cleaning schedule on the line
When | What |
|---|---|
Every change of job | Board to the dish area, a clean board of the right color out |
Every 4 hours at the latest | Every board in use on TCS food swapped for a clean one |
Close | Every board washed, rinsed, sanitized, air-dried and racked by color |
Weekly | Every board checked for deep scoring, cracks and stains (the log below) |
Put the 4-hour swap on your line check at fixed times, such as [11 a.m. and 3 p.m.], so it doesn't depend on someone remembering.
The board condition and replacement log
Once a week, the kitchen manager checks every board. A board is replaced or resurfaced when a scratch catches a fingernail, when it's warped and rocks on the table, when it's cracked, or when a stain won't wash out.
[Café / restaurant name] — Cutting board log
Week of: [date] · Checked by: …………………………
Color | Board # | Station | Condition: OK / Scored / Cracked / Warped / Stained | Action: Keep / Resurface / Replace | Done (date) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Red | 1 | Prep 1 | |||
Red | 2 | Prep 1 | |||
Yellow | 1 | Prep 1 | |||
Blue | 1 | Prep 1 | |||
Green | 1 | Prep 2 | |||
Brown | 1 | Line | |||
White | 1 | Pastry | |||
Purple | 1 | Allergy spot |
Boards on order: ………………………… Ordered on: ……………
Number the boards with a marker or a label on one corner, so the log follows each board over time. Add plastic boards to your par list so a replacement is on the shelf before a board has to go.
Training it
Two minutes, at the prep table, for every new hire: show the chart, ask them which board they'd use for raw chicken, then for the salad that goes next to it, then for the allergy order. Show them where the spares are and what a board that should be thrown out looks like. Our station training sign-off sheet has a line for it.
Your cutting board checklist
- [ ] One color scheme for the whole kitchen, on the wall at every prep area
- [ ] Enough boards of each color for a busy day, plus spares
- [ ] A board map: which colors live at which station
- [ ] Boards washed, rinsed and sanitized between jobs, never just wiped
- [ ] Boards in use on TCS food swapped at least every 4 hours
- [ ] A purple board and knife kept apart for allergy orders
- [ ] Weekly check for scoring, cracks and warping; replace or resurface
- [ ] Wooden boards only of hard maple or similar close-grained wood
Where Mays fits
- The chart in every pocket. Put the chart and the board map in a Knowledge Base folder shared with the kitchen; staff read it in the app's Knowledge tab. See Your knowledge base.
- The chart on the kitchen screen. With a digital signage subscription, upload the chart as an image under Signage → Media and add it to the playlist on a screen in the kitchen. See Signage media and playlists.
- The board swap on the checklist. On your line checklist template, add tasks such as 11 a.m. board swap with the Photo answer type, a photo of the clean boards in the rack. With AI photo verification on, Mays scores each photo against the task and flags a weak one for the manager. See Creating a checklist template and AI photo verification.
- The weekly check. A Weekly checklist with one task per board, or one Multiple Choice task per color with the conditions as options.
What Mays doesn't do: a checklist creates its tasks once a day, so each board swap is its own task with its own name, and there's no reminder at a set time of day. Mays can't tell from a photo which board was used for which food.
The board tells you what it's for
One color per job, a chart on the wall, a clean board for every change of job and at least every 4 hours, and a weekly look for boards that are past it. It costs a few boards and a little rack space, and it takes the guesswork out of the most common cross-contamination in a kitchen.
Start your free trial: 30 days, every module, no card needed. Or book a walkthrough and we'll build your line checklist and board check with you.