Food Hygeine ratings

Enviromental Health Officers inspect food outlets and give a Food Hygeine rating depending on the state of things at the time of the inspection. If the officers find severe and dangerous hygeine problems, they can advise the owners to clean things up ready to be inspected in a few days time, by arrangement.

A Food Hygeine Rating of zero is a severe and immediate health risk.
Ratings of 1, 2, and 3, show improvements are needed to bring hygeine up to an acceptable standard.
Ratings 4 and 5 are good and very good.

People who eat food from somewhere that has recently been closed down as a danger to health and re-opened with a Food Hygeine rating of 1 may later wish to read up on food hygiene ratings whilst they convalesce.

As a matter of procedures a zero rating can be given if the appropriate paper work has not been compiled and recorded properly. Such a failure can mean that the required inspection of the daily operations and procedures at the establishment have not been carried out and thus could prove a health hazard vs-a-vis temperature checks, cleaning and storage. It does not necessarily mean that the preparation, cooking and storage of food is done in a dangerous manner. The premises could be spotless and everything in the way of food safety done as health requirements - - but how do you prove it has been done scrupulously without the daily records and checks. I know of one similar establishment given a zero for just that reason.
Do not assume the worst unless such has been verified by other means - such as the Environmental Health themselves.