Food Hygiene Rating Scheme

The National Food Hygiene Scheme provides consumers with information about hygiene standards in food businesses. This enables them to make informed choices about where they eat or shop for food.

How you'll get your rating

We carry out surprise inspections at food businesses throughout the borough.

We give each business a rating after our inspection. The rating ranges from poor to very good.

You'll get a window sticker with your hygiene rating. You must display this sticker where you run your food business. The rating is also published on a national website.

You can search food hygiene ratings for food businesses on the Food Standards Agency (FSA) website. Enter 'Walsall' into the local authority field to search for businesses in the borough.

If you have a poor food hygiene rating, that's bad for business. Contact us to talk about how we can help you to improve.

We base our ratings on information we collect during a food hygiene inspection. This includes:

• food preparation, cooking, re-heating, cooling and storage
• structure and condition of the premises including cleanliness, lighting and ventilation
• response to tackling issues raised at previous inspections

See the FSA website for tools to help manage food hygiene in businesses.

What to expect at your inspection

Members of the Environmental Health team visit businesses to:

• check to ensure food is being handled and produced hygienically
• check that food is safe to eat
• identify any reasonably foreseeable risks to food safety which may cause food poisoning or injury

A premises may change category after an inspection. This could be due to:

• an improvement (lower risk)
• a deterioration (higher risk) of conditions

What to do if you disagree with your rating

There are many ways to make sure the Food Hygiene Rating Scheme is fair to businesses. You:

• can make an appeal
• have the right to reply
• have the opportunity to request a re-visit after you have made improvements

Find out more about how you can make an appeal on the Food Standards Agency website.