How food hygiene ratings work
Everything you need to know — from what the 0–5 rating means, to how inspections happen, to how we calculate the Foopy Score.
What is a food hygiene rating?
The Food Hygiene Rating Scheme (FHRS) is run by the Food Standards Agency (FSA) in partnership with local councils. It gives every food business — restaurants, cafes, takeaways, pubs, school canteens and more — a rating from 0 to 5 based on an unannounced inspection.
The rating tells you how well a business is meeting food hygiene law at the time of inspection. It is not a measure of food quality or taste.
Very Good
Good
Generally Satisfactory
Improvement Necessary
Major Improvement Necessary
Urgent Improvement Required
How inspections work
Inspections are carried out by environmental health officers from your local council. They are unannounced — businesses receive no advance warning.
Inspectors assess three things, each scored separately (lower is better in the raw data):
- Food hygiene — how food is handled, stored, prepared, and cooked; temperature control; pest control.
- Structural condition — cleanliness of the building, equipment, layout, lighting, and ventilation.
- Confidence in management — how well the business manages food safety (staff training, documented procedures, track record).
The three sub-scores are combined into a single overall rating using a published formula. A rating of 5 requires all three areas to be in good shape — a single weak area can pull the overall rating down significantly.
Inspection frequency depends on risk. A high-volume restaurant serving vulnerable groups might be inspected every 6 months. A low-risk sandwich shop might go 2 years between inspections. COVID-19 caused widespread delays in 2020–2022, so some valid ratings are older than usual.
Display of ratings — an important note
In Wales, Northern Ireland, and Scotland, food businesses are legally required to display their hygiene rating sticker at their premises.
In England, display is voluntary. A restaurant is not required by law to show its rating at the door, even if the rating is low. This is one reason Foopy exists — to make ratings easy to find before you visit.
You can always look up any registered food business in England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland for free on the FSA website.
Appeals and re-inspections
If a business receives a rating it believes is unfair, it has two options:
- Appeal — the business can appeal the rating to the local council within 21 days. The council reviews the decision.
- Right to reply — businesses can add a short statement to their FSA listing explaining what has changed since the inspection.
- Request a re-inspection — once improvements have been made, businesses can request a revisit (there may be a fee). The new rating replaces the old one.
Because of this, a low rating is not necessarily permanent. A restaurant that has genuinely improved its practices and been re-inspected will carry the new, better rating.
How the Foopy Score is calculated
The Foopy Score combines the official food hygiene rating with Google Reviews to give a single number out of 10.
The formula
Review count weighting
A restaurant with 5 reviews averaging 5★ is less reliable than one with 500 reviews averaging 5★. To account for this, we apply a Bayesian adjustment to Google ratings when the review count is below 200 — the score is nudged towards the London average (4.0★). The effect fades as review count grows.
Stale inspection penalty
Restaurants should be inspected every 1–2 years. When a rating is older than 2 years, we reduce the Foopy Score to reflect uncertainty about current standards — while leaving the official hygiene rating unchanged. The maximum deduction is 1.0 point.
Foopy Scores are only available for central London restaurants where we have both food hygiene and Google Reviews data. Outside this area, we show the hygiene rating (0–5) only.
Google Reviews coverage
Google Reviews data is available for central London restaurants. We fetch and cache ratings periodically — the date is shown on each restaurant page.
For restaurants outside central London, or for places that haven't been matched to a Google listing yet, only the food hygiene rating is shown.
Frequently asked questions
Why is there no Foopy Score for this restaurant?
Foopy Scores require both a food hygiene rating and Google Reviews data. If a restaurant is outside our central London coverage, or if the Google data hasn't been fetched yet, we show the hygiene rating only.
The hygiene rating looks old — is it still valid?
Yes, the official rating is valid until superseded by a new inspection. However, an old rating means we know less about the current state of the premises. We flag ratings older than 2 years and apply a small Foopy Score penalty.
A restaurant has a bad rating but seems fine — what should I do?
You can check the FSA website for any “right to reply” statement from the business. It's also worth considering when the inspection took place — if it was several years ago, standards may have improved. When in doubt, check whether a re-inspection has happened.
How do I report a hygiene concern?
Contact your local council's environmental health team. You can find their details on the FSA website by looking up the restaurant and clicking the local authority link.
Is Foopy responsible for the accuracy of the data?
No. Food hygiene data is owned and maintained by the Food Standards Agency and local councils. Google Reviews are managed by Google. Foopy displays this publicly available information but cannot guarantee its accuracy or timeliness. Always check primary sources if in doubt.
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