Food & Health Alliance

Food hygiene rating schemes are designed to provide consumers with information, allowing them to make informed choices on the hygiene standards of food establishments.

Local Authority officers inspect food establishments to check compliance with legal requirements and the ratings reflect the level of compliance the inspectors observe. The scheme in Scotland is called the Food Hygiene Information Scheme (FHIS) and there are two outcomes/ratings ‘Pass’ (compliant with legal requirements) or ‘Improvement Required’ (not a ‘Pass’).  Information on food businesses in the scheme can be found by clicking on the FHIS link in the previous sentence . This UK-wide information includes data from approximately 23,200 Scottish food businesses.

Ratings are published on the Food Standards Agency (FSA) UK platform.  Local Authority websites and businesses are asked to display a certificate and sticker at their premises to help inform consumers. Experience of the schemes suggests that they encourage businesses to raise standards.

National promotional activities will highlight to consumers to expect certificates and stickers to be displayed and to draw their own conclusions where they are not.

Progress across Scotland is going well with 20 of the 32 Scottish Local Authorities now having successfully launched FHIS. Looking to the future, it is anticipated that another Local Authority will have launched the scheme by the end of 2011. A further four are in the early planning stages and one more is anticipating beginning work later in the year. This will bring the total number of Local Authorities committed to launching the scheme across Scotland up to 26. FSA Scotland is actively working with the remaining six Local Authorities yet to sign up.

In addition, the Food Standards Agency are delighted that the uptake of the FHIS has been adopted by Scottish Ministers as an indicator for the National Food and Drink Policy, ‘Recipe for Success’.