Use this food hygiene rating checklist to turn a grade into a decision you can explain. The essential checks are the exact location, inspecting authority, visit date, visit type, detailed findings, and any later correction or reinspection.
Before opening the inspection record
- Write down the restaurant’s full address and postal code.
- Note the branch, unit, or suite number for a chain or shared building.
- Identify the public health department, council, or food authority for that address.
- Use an official portal rather than a review site or copied directory.
The Food Standards Agency search covers participating UK jurisdictions. For U.S. locations, use the relevant state or local portal; the FDA retail food protection contacts can help with routing.
Identity checklist
| Check | Pass condition |
|---|---|
| Name | The licensed or legal name reasonably matches the restaurant. |
| Address | Street number, street, city, and branch are correct. |
| Facility ID | The identifier stays consistent across visits. |
| Operator | The record is not for a previous tenant at the same address. |
| Jurisdiction | The authority actually inspects that location. |
If one of these fails, pause before reading the score. A perfectly interpreted record for the wrong branch is still the wrong answer.
Inspection checklist
- Record the inspection date and whether the visit was routine, complaint-based, or a follow-up.
- Read the authority’s explanation of its score, letter, number, or star scale.
- Open the detailed findings rather than relying on the summary badge.
- Separate observations made during the visit from later corrections reported by the operator.
- Look for a reinspection, reopening, closure, or other later event.
- Check whether the portal marks an appeal, pending update, or administrative status.
Decision checklist
Ask how serious the specific finding is, how recently it occurred, whether it repeated across visits, and whether the authority confirmed correction. One older finding followed by a satisfactory reinspection carries different information from the same issue appearing repeatedly without a documented follow-up.
- Do not compare raw scores across jurisdictions without reading each scale.
- Do not treat a missing online record as proof that no inspection exists.
- Do not assign a former operator’s history to a new business without evidence.
- Do not replace the authority’s wording with a stronger claim.
Stop and seek clarification when the branch cannot be matched, the latest event is a closure without a reopening record, or the portal’s scale is not explained. The checklist is meant to expose uncertainty as well as results. A careful conclusion can be “the public record is inconclusive as of this date” when the available evidence does not support more.
For a group decision, have a second person repeat the search from the saved identifiers. Independent repetition catches wrong-branch matches, missed follow-up dates, and cached search snippets before they become a recommendation.
When reporting the check, separate verified fields from unresolved ones. Write the date beside each source and avoid filling a missing status with an assumption. This keeps the checklist useful even when the authority publishes only part of the inspection history.
UK-specific checks before you trust a rating
If the business is in England, Wales or Northern Ireland, the Food Standards Agency’s scheme guidance adds a few checks that a generic checklist misses:
- Sticker versus website. The two can differ for a short time while a business appeals its latest rating or while the local authority uploads a new one. Authorities upload at least every 28 days. A higher sticker than the website shows, with no appeal or recent visit to explain it, is something the guidance says to report to the local authority.
- Display rules by nation. Display is a legal requirement in Wales and Northern Ireland, and businesses there must also tell you their rating if you ask in person or by phone. In England, display is voluntary, so a missing sticker is not evidence of a low rating.
- No number at all. Some low-risk businesses, such as newsagents selling only prepacked goods, and childminders are inspected but exempt from a rating. Home caterers are published with only the first part of the postcode, so a full-postcode search won’t find them.
- The three-part breakdown. Online ratings show scores for food handling, the condition of the premises and food safety management for businesses inspected since April 2016 in England and Northern Ireland and since November 2014 in Wales. A 3 driven by premises condition tells you something different from a 3 driven by food handling.
- The date may not be the latest check. Inspection intervals range from six months to two years by risk, and the guidance notes that other monitoring methods mean the published date may not be the most recent contact.
To see the officer’s full report, the guidance points to a Freedom of Information request to the local authority named on the rating page.
What to save
Keep the facility name, address, identifier, authority, inspection date, visit type, score or rating, main findings, follow-up date, source URL, and the date you checked it. If the decision matters, save the official PDF or page and revisit the live record for later changes.
Use How to Check a Food Hygiene Rating for the full lookup process. For a result outside the UK, the Australian food hygiene rating guide shows how a different scheme reports the same kind of visit.
Add one branch to the checklist when no numeric rating appears: compare the exact status wording with the food hygiene rating pending-status guide, then check the matched business and local authority before contacting either party.