Duh files: UK will push for mandatory restaurant inspection disclosure following Welsh success

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Brisbane, are you listening?

Voluntary restaurant inspection disclosure means the good ones will brag and the bad ones will be quiet, sorta with their heads down, hoping no one will ask them a question

orillia.rest.disclosureThe UK Food Standards Agency will now do what it should have done all along: provide Government with evidence to support mandatory display of food hygiene rating scores for England by autumn 2015.

Following the rise in Welsh food hygiene standards since the introduction of mandatory display of scores in November 2013, The Food Standards Agency will be pushing this year for the same to be carried out in England.

A recent FSA audit of the food hygiene rating scheme in England in 2013/14 showed that only 35% of English food businesses displayed their ratings in a position that’s visible before entering the premises. Predictably, most of those establishments had received a 4 or 5 food hygiene rating score. The results of further auditing will be released later this month (April 2015).

Before legislation came into force in Wales which instructed that all food businesses must display their food hygiene rating score, 45% had a 5 food hygiene rating and 87% had a 3 or above. And after just 12 months of the enforcement, 56% recorded a 5 rating and 93% 3 or above.
These figures will be used as supportive evidence for the introduction of mandatory display of food hygiene rating scores when the FSA comes to lobby Government later this year.

In its evidence for ministers, the FSA is also likely to use the results of research by the Policies Studies Insitiute into the impact that the scheme has had on food hygiene compliance and the occurrence of foodborne disease.

Chief executive of the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health (CIEH) Graham Jukes said, “CIEH fully supports the mandatory display of FHRS in food premises. It is clear from the evidence in Wales that mandatory display is an important and effective tool in raising standards in food businesses, driven by simple consumer information messaging. Given the evidence why are we delaying the implementation in England and the rest of the UK?”