Mandatory display of food hygiene ratings

CIEH has long called for mandatory food hygiene rating displays across England. Food Hygiene Rating Schemes (FHRS) are essential to:

• Provide consumers with information about the hygiene standards at food establishments, enabling them to make informed choices about where they eat and purchase food.
• To drive up hygiene standards and increase compliance with food hygiene law.

Despite statutory schemes being introduced in Wales in 2013 and Northern Ireland in 2016, making participation compulsory for local authorities and the display of food hygiene ratings mandatory for food establishments, a voluntary scheme is in place in England.

Businesses in England, Wales and Northern Ireland are rated 0 (urgent improvement necessary) to 5 (very good) following an inspection by an environmental health officer. Food businesses are issued with a sticker showing the rating, which is also published on the Food Standards Agency (FSA) website.

In Wales and Northern Ireland, stickers must be displayed in a conspicuous place at or near each entrance to the establishment.

One of the consequences of the scheme being voluntary in England is that only 69% of businesses display a food hygiene rating sticker, compared with 92% of businesses in Wales, and 91% in Northern Ireland.

Public support for the mandatory display of ratings has been consistently high, with more than four in five businesses in England supporting the introduction of mandatory display of FHRS.

What are we doing?

We have been calling for a statutory food hygiene rating scheme in England for a number of years. This key information would help consumers make informed decisions about where they eat and purchase food and compel food businesses to display their ratings.

Unfortunately, the number of local authority food safety officers has been dropping. In 2022, the FSA reported that the number of food safety allocated posts supported by local authorities in England, Wales and Northern Ireland in 2022 has fallen by nearly 14% since 2011-2012 and 1 in 7 positions remain vacant.

Alongside our call to mandate the display of food hygiene ratings in England, we have been supporting the growth of professionals involved in carrying out food hygiene inspections, by providing training, professional accreditation and encouraging more local authorities to consider taking on an apprentice in environmental health.

Boosting the profile of environmental health to the next generation of workers is also essential for the future of food safety and enforcement of hygiene standards. We are therefore targeting those in educational settings as well as professionals with transferable skills seeking a career change to ensure more people consider environmental health as a profession.

Our policy reports

In October 2019, we submitted a call for evidence in relation to an independent report on the government’s National Food Strategy (NFS). In this submission, we recommended that the NFS should:

• Speed up the introduction of mandatory display of food hygiene ratings in England to drive up food safety standards and empower consumers to make more informed choices.
• Ensure local authorities have sufficient resources and capacity to sustain the scheme.
• Strongly endorse a holistic approach to food regulation, whereby the same food law enforcement officer is responsible for food standards and food hygiene (as is already the case in Unitary Authorities and is more cost-effective).

Part one of the strategy was published in July 2020. Part two was published on 15 July 2021. In 2021, we also took the opportunity to submit additional evidence to inform the National Food Strategy White Paper.
Following the recommendations made in the two-part National Food Strategy, the government has committed to respond formally with a White Paper, due in May 2022.

Through the CIEH Workforce survey, we identified problems with the recruitment of suitably qualified officers and significant use of agency staff to deliver environmental health services.

Results of the survey indicated that local authorities in England are not funding enough training for the next generation of environmental health professionals; 56% of local authorities did not have any paid or unpaid trainees in environmental health in either 2018/19 or 2019/20, and 70% did not have a single environmental health apprentice. Not having any budget (66%) and not having the capacity to mentor (52%) were the primary reasons given for not taking on any trainees.

What's next?

Introducing a statutory food hygiene rating scheme in England will need political support for the introduction of new legislation, coupled with measures to ensure there are adequate resources in place to deliver the scheme on the ground. 

The National Audit Office found that between 2012/13 and 2017/18, local authority expenditure on food hygiene in England fell by an estimated 19% from £125 million to £101 million and food hygiene staff numbers dropped by an estimated 13%. In 2019/20, local authorities in England had 2.9 officers per 1,000 food establishments compared with 5.5 in Wales and 4.3 in Northern Ireland.

As well as ensuring adequate numbers of food safety officers on the ground to sustain a statutory scheme, there would need to be an investment in training to ensure the consistent application of the scheme. We will continue to campaign to ensure any proposals for a statutory scheme in England address these issues for the benefit of consumers and businesses.