This Council has adopted the Food Standards Agency’s National Food Hygiene Rating Scheme, whereby standards of hygiene found during routine inspections of food businesses by Environmental Health Officers are published, using a numerical rating system from zero to five. The top rating of five represents “very good” hygiene standards and the bottom rating of zero is given to those businesses where “urgent improvement” is required.

All premises which are subject to the scheme are provided with a certificate and a window sticker indicating their rating. Whilst there is currently no legal requirement for food businesses to display this information, all ratings are published on the National Scheme’s website at www.food.gov.uk/ratings and also on this website (see below).

The National Scheme applies to food businesses where the public make decisions to purchase food for consumption, on or off the premises, including restaurants, takeaways, supermarkets, hotels, guesthouses, hospitals and staff canteens.

The operation of the National Scheme is controlled by the Food Standards Agency and includes safeguards for businesses including strict conditions relating to consistency, appeals, re-scoring and the right to reply. Full details of the scheme and the procedures for implementing these safeguards are available on the National website at www.food.gov.uk/ratings.

Other businesses, such as manufacturers, wholesalers, importers and distributors are outside the scope of the National Scheme but, in the interests of freedom of information, Ards Borough Council has decided to publish the hygiene standards of these businesses also. Although this is done on this website only, the same criteria and numerical ratings as that of the National Scheme are used. The same conditions relating to consistency, appeals, re-scoring and the right to reply are also applied as far as is practicable. (Certain businesses, such as those which are deemed to be of low risk and childminders operating from private homes are excluded from both published lists).

The publication of Food Hygiene Ratings of businesses which fall within the scope of the National Scheme can be found here.

The publication of Food Hygiene ratings of all businesses within the Ards Borough Council area can be found here.