How food hygiene ratings work
A food hygiene rating tells you how well a business met food hygiene standards the last time it was inspected. It's set by the local council, not the business or the FSA, and built from three separate checks.
Who carries out the inspection
Ratings are given by a food safety officer from the local council, not by the Food Standards Agency (FSA) and not by the business. The officer checks that the business follows food hygiene law so that the food it serves is safe to eat, then assigns a rating and issues the green-and-black sticker shortly afterwards.
How often businesses are inspected
Inspections are risk-based rather than on a fixed annual schedule. A business handling lots of high-risk food, or one with a poor track record, is visited more often than a low-risk shop selling pre-packaged goods.
The time between inspections ranges from six months for the highest-risk businesses to two years for lower-risk ones, and some very low-risk businesses go longer than two years.
What inspectors check
To work out a rating, the officer looks at three separate areas:
- Hygienic food handling: how food is prepared, cooked, re-heated, cooled and stored.
- The physical condition of the premises: cleanliness, layout, lighting, ventilation, pest control and facilities.
- Confidence in management: the systems, processes and staff training that keep food safe in future.
These three areas are exactly what we show on each business page. To earn the top score, a business has to do well in all three. A weakness in any one can pull the rating down. See what each 0–5 rating means
A rating is a snapshot
A rating reflects the standards found on the day of the inspection. It isn't a live guarantee, and a business could slip below or rise above its rating between visits. It's best read as "how this place was doing when an officer last checked".
Where the data comes from
Every rating on this site comes from the FSA's official open data. You can read the scheme in full on the Food Standards Agency website or check a business on the official ratings search.
Common questions
Who decides a food hygiene rating?
A food safety officer from the local council inspects the business against food hygiene law and assigns the rating. It is not decided by the Food Standards Agency or by the business itself.
How often are restaurants inspected?
Inspection frequency is based on risk. The highest-risk businesses are inspected as often as every six months, and lower-risk businesses about every two years, with some very low-risk ones going longer than that.
Does a high rating guarantee the food is safe?
No. The rating is a snapshot of the hygiene standards found at the time of the last inspection. Standards can change between inspections, so a rating reflects that visit rather than an ongoing guarantee.
Do businesses have to display their rating?
In Wales and Northern Ireland, yes. In England and Scotland it is voluntary, so plenty of businesses with good ratings never put the sticker up. The rating is published online either way. Where and when ratings have to be shown.