FOOD HYGIENE RATING
Food Hygiene Rating Scheme
The scheme helps you choose where to eat out or shop for food by providing clear information about businesses’ hygiene standards. We run the scheme in partnership with local authorities in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
5 – hygiene standards are very good
4 – hygiene standards are good
3 – hygiene standards are generally satisfactory
2 – some improvement is necessary
1 – Major improvement is necessary
0 – urgent improvement is required
Food Hygiene Rating sticker with a five rating
What the rating covers
Ratings are a snapshot of the standards of food hygiene found at the time of inspection. It is the responsibility of the business to comply with food hygiene laws at all times.
This includes:
handling of food
how food is stored
how food is prepared
cleanliness of facilities
how food safety is managed
The food hygiene rating scheme does not provide information on the following factors:
quality of the food
customer service
culinary skill
presentation
comfort
For suspected food poisoning, seek medical advice from your GP and contact your local environmental health or food safety team.
Understanding ratings
The rating shows how well the business is doing, based on standards found during inspection. The ratings can be found online and on stickers which are displayed at business premises. The back of the sticker and the online rating will also show the date of the inspection by the local authority’s food safety officer.
Ratings are typically given to places where food is supplied, sold or consumed, such as:
restaurants, pubs and cafes
takeaways, food vans and stalls
canteens and hotels
supermarkets and other food shops
schools, hospitals and care homes
A food safety officer from the local authority inspects a business to check that it follows food hygiene law so that the food is safe to eat.
At the inspection, the officer will check the following three elements:
how hygienically the food is handled – how it is prepared, cooked, re-heated, cooled and stored
the physical condition of the business –including cleanliness, layout, lighting, ventilation, pest control and other facilities
how the business manages ways of keeping food safe, looking at processes, training and systems to ensure good hygiene is maintained. The officer can then assess the level of confidence in standards being maintained in the future
Exemptions
There are two groups of exempt businesses which are inspected by the local authority food safety officer but are not given a food hygiene rating:
businesses that are low-risk to public health, for example, newsagents, chemist shops or visitor centres selling pre-wrapped goods that do not require refrigeration
childminders and businesses that offer caring services at home
The rating scale
The hygiene standards found at the time of inspection are then rated on a scale:
5 is top of the scale, this means the hygiene standards are very good and fully comply with the law
0 is at the bottom of the scale, this means urgent improvement is necessary
To get the top rating, businesses must do well in all three elements which are referenced above. If the top rating is not given, the officer will explain to the business the necessary actions they can take to improve their hygiene rating.
A breakdown of the three elements making up the food hygiene rating for business is also provided with the online rating. This information is available for businesses inspected since April 2016 in England and Northern Ireland and for businesses inspected in Wales since November 2014.
Detailed information is included in the food safety officer’s inspection report. If you want to see this you could make a Freedom of Information (FOI) request (Opens in a new window) to the local authority that carried out the inspection. You can find the local authority’s contact details by searching for the business and then clicking on the name of the business.
The local authority will consider your FOI request and will usually send you a copy of the report. In some cases, the local authority may decide that they cannot do so but will let you know this and explain why. Any concerns relating to a business's food safety can be reported to the local food safety team who are responsible for the business. You can find the local authority’s contact details by searching for the business and then clicking on the name of the business.
Finding a rating
Browse our ratings online. (Opens in a new window)
Ratings can be displayed in an obvious location within the business’ window or door. You can also ask a member of staff what rating was given at the last inspection. Putting a hygiene rating on show is a good advertisement for businesses that meet the requirements of food hygiene law. If the rating is low you can then choose to buy your food or meal from a place with a higher rating.
There has been a recent increase in the number of food businesses now selling online. We are working to extend the current requirement for the display of a food hygiene rating at a business premise to include display online for those businesses with an online presence.
If you cannot find a rating
Try searching using just the business name or with the first part of the postcode. For businesses registered at a private address (e.g. home caterers), only limited address information is published i.e. the first part of the postcode. Searching using parts of the address that are not published, for example, the full postcode or the town, will not return the premises. If you are still unable to find a rating, you should contact the local authority responsible for inspecting the establishment. The FSA provides the ratings website but what is published on it is supplied by the local authority.
Northern Ireland
Businesses in Northern Ireland are legally required to display their ratings at or near each customer entrance like the front door, entrance or window of the business. Stickers must be displayed in a location where they can be readily seen and easily read by customers before they enter the establishment when it is open for business.
All businesses in Northern Ireland must provide information on their rating verbally if requested in person or over the phone.
Differences between online ratings and rating stickers displayed
There may be temporary differences between the rating displayed at a business and online rating for which there are valid reasons, such as:
the business has appealed its latest rating and is awaiting the result
the local authority is in the process of uploading the new rating to our website
Even if a business achieves the top rating there can be a short delay while the local authority updates the website. Local authorities upload ratings at least every 28 days. If you cannot find a rating for business then you will need to contact the local authority responsible for inspecting the business.
You should also contact the local authority if you are concerned that a business is deliberately displaying a higher rating to the one on the website to suggest it has higher hygiene standards than it actually does.
Businesses with poor ratings
Businesses which are given low ratings must make urgent or major improvements to hygiene standards. The local authority food safety officer has several enforcement options available as well as giving advice and guidance to make sure these improvements are made.
The food safety officer will also tell the business how quickly these improvements must be made and this will depend on the type of issue that needs to be addressed.
If the officer finds that a business’s hygiene standards are very poor and there is an imminent risk to public health, when food may be unsafe to eat, the officer must act to ensure consumers are protected. This could result in stopping part of the business or closing it down completely until it is safe to recommence.
Frequency of inspections
A new rating is given each time a business is inspected by a food safety officer from the business’s local authority.
Each local authority plans a programme of inspections every year. The frequency of inspections depends on the potential risk to public health.
The assessment takes account of the following factors:
type of food that is handled
the number and type of customers, for example, vulnerable groups
types of processes carried out before the food is sold or served
hygiene standards seen on the day of the last inspection
Businesses that pose a higher risk are inspected more often than businesses that pose a lower risk, for example, a small retailer selling a range of prepacked foods that only need to be refrigerated. The time between inspections varies from six months for the highest-risk businesses to two years for lower-risk businesses. For some very low-risk businesses, the interval between inspections may be longer than two years, however, there may be some exceptions to this.
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Source: The Food Standard Agency