How to respond to your food hygiene rating
The Food Hygiene Rating Scheme is a national scheme designed to help people make informed choices about where they eat or shop for food, and encourage food businesses to keep good hygiene standards.
Read more about how food businesses are rated:
Following an inspection you have the right to respond to your rating in one of the following ways:
Appeal your rating
If following a hygiene inspection you think your rating is wrong or unfair, you can appeal it with the Lead Food Officer (or designated deputy, in their absence). If the person who conducted your inspection is the Lead Food Officer, your appeal would be handled by a lead food officer from another local authority.
The first part of the process involves speaking to the inspecting officer who carried out your inspection. The aim of this is to give you a chance to discuss the rating you received and understand how it was decided. By doing this you may be able to resolve any disputes informally and avoid resorting to the appeal procedure.
If you do decide to lodge a formal appeal please first read:
To lodge an appeal please complete the form below and return it within 21 days of receipt of your ratings notification letter. This needs to be submitted via the online portal:
- After clicking the link you will need to register in order to lodge an appeal.
- Select 'Requests for Service or Complaints' and then select 'Food Hygiene Rating Appeal'.
Request a revisit
If you have made the improvements we suggested at our inspection, you can request a revisit.
We offer two options for a FHRS rescore revisit:
- 'standard' requested FHRS revisit: this is a full inspection which will be carried out unannounced, within 12 weeks of the formal request and received payment.
The fee is £185. - 'urgent' requested FHRS revisit: this is a full inspection which will be carried out unannounced, within 35 days of the formal request and received payment.
The fee is £235. - Prices from 1st April 2024 to 31st March 2025. Prices are subject to an annual increase in April, prices correct as at 1st April 2024.
To request a revisit of your choice, please contact us via our online portal:
- After clicking the link you will need to register in order to request your revisit.
- Once registered please click on 'Requests' - then select either 'food hygiene rating scheme food revisit standard or 'food hygiene rating scheme urgent food revisit'.
- The portal will ask you to complete a 'request for a revisit' form as part of the process and will also process your payment.
The Food Hygiene Rating Scheme (FHRS) Urgent Request for a Revisit will take place within 35 days providing that an officer is available to carry out the visit.
Please note that if you have been issued a score of 20 or higher for Confidence in Management, we are required to follow the Food Standards Agency's Brand Standard and allow a stand-still period of three months before reassessing the Confidence in Management criteria. Therefore, if you apply for an urgent request for a revisit, the highest Food Hygiene Rating Score you can achieve if you have met all the requirements is a 4 for this occasion. Standards will be required to be maintained for at least three months before a Food Hygiene Rating Score of 5 can be issued.
On the rare occasion when an officer is unable to visit within 35 days (due to resources available to carry out the Food Hygiene Delivery Service), a partial refund will be returned (for the urgent request for a revisit) and the standard fee for a request for a revisit will remain. The resulting requested revisit will take place within 12 weeks.
For businesses that had been issued with a FHRS of 0-2 at their initial inspection, the FHRS Urgent Request for a Revisit visit does not remove the option for an enforcement revisit to be carried out at a suitable date by an officer, before the next routine inspection, if there were significant contraventions relating to cleanliness, pest control and food safety management.
Please note that ratings of less than a 5 are uploaded to the Food Standards Agency (FSA) ratings website after 35 days from the date of the inspection. (As the FHRS enters the public domain at this point, any delivery partners that you may have (such as Just Eat, Deliveroo etc.) can become aware of your FHRS).
If a FHRS of 5 has not been issued at the FHRS Urgent Request for a Revisit visit and the new score is required to be uploaded to the FSA ratings website before 35 days, an application for an early publication of the FHRS will be required and applied via our online portal:
Please note that your rescore request can only be processed once payment has been received.
For the 'standard' and 'urgent 'requested revisits, you can request either type of revisit at any time after the statutory inspection and there is no limit to the number of revisits you request. However, as you need to pay for each revisit, we recommend you make sure you address all issues raised following your inspection before submitting a request.
Please be advised that the inspecting officer can return to carry out enforcement revisits also, which are outside the Food Hygiene Rating Scheme to ensure any legal requirements have been met within a set time period.
What happens after a revisit
Your revised rating score could stay the same, or it could go up or down. You will be sent a new FHRS sticker in the post within five working days (our post goes out by second class post) and the score awarded at the time of the revisit will be uploaded onto the ratings website within five working days.
As with your original hygiene rating you have the right to appeal if you feel your score is unfair. You can also:
- request another revisit (see above)
- or request a right to reply (see below)
Request a right to reply
The right to reply allows you to explain to customers what you have done to improve hygiene standards. It is not an opportunity to make complaints or criticise the scheme or process.
Your comments will be reviewed to check for any offensive remarks before being published alongside your rating online.
To submit a right to reply please use the form below. This needs to be submitted via the online portal:
- After clicking the link you will need to register in order to submit a Right to Reply.
- Select 'Requests for Service or Complaints' and then select 'Food Hygiene Rating Scheme - Right to Reply'.
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Page last updated: 17 December 2024