About Food Hygiene Alerts
Whether you must display the sticker, and what to do about the number on it
What is on this site
One question, "food hygiene uk", answered with a checker that works on the page with no account, 5 guides on the questions around it, a data table you can cite (the figures and their method), and the sources every figure rests on.
- Food hygiene rating display rules, nation by nation: Compulsory in Wales and Northern Ireland under separate Acts, voluntary in England, and a different scheme in Scotland. What each position means in practice.
- Appealing a food hygiene rating, and the two things that are not appeals: An appeal, a right to reply and a re-rating do three different jobs. Choosing the wrong one is how businesses lose a deadline and change nothing.
- Preparing for a food hygiene re-rating inspection: A re-rating inspects the business as it is now, and can confirm the existing rating. The four things to have genuinely settled before requesting one.
- Checking a food hygiene rating, and what the number does not tell you: Ratings are published and released as open data. What the three elements behind the number are, and why a rating is a snapshot rather than a running score.
- Food hygiene rating meaning: what 0 to 5 actually measures: What each food hygiene rating from 0 to 5 means, the three things an inspector scores, where to look a rating up, and why the number is not a verdict on the food.
Reach us
Contact for a question about the site, or enquiries@foodhygienealerts.co.uk. The legal terms are on Terms and Privacy.
Food Hygiene Alerts is an independent site operated by Ellul Solutions Ltd. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by or connected to the Food Standards Agency, Food Standards Scotland, any local authority or any government body, and it is not a food safety consultancy or a law firm. Nothing here is legal advice on an inspection, an appeal or an enforcement matter, and the rating for any particular business is a question for the local authority that issued it. We publish no penalty amount, appeal deadline or re-rating fee anywhere on this site: those are set in the schedules to the two Acts and in local authority policy, they differ between nations, and a figure we had not read at source would be a guess. Every requirement stated here is taken from the source cited beside it and read on the date shown at the top of this page.