Food Hygiene Scores on Doors System

Malvern Hills District Council  along with the other Councils in Herefordshire and Worcestershire launched the 'Scores on the Doors' scheme on 28 January 2008 - a new system whereby restaurants, takeaways and food premises have been graded from 0 to 5 stars, following an inspection from the Environmental Health team.

The overall aim of the scheme is to improve food safety and hygiene standards among businesses providing food and drink to consumers living, working or visiting Worcerstershire or Herefordshire.  This will be achieved by:

• providing consumers with a user-friendly way to access the information they need to make informed choices about where to eat or buy food in the County
• encouraging food businesses where deficiencies are found to improve their standards of food hygiene, leading to safer food
• ensuring that those food businesses achieving consistently high standards of food hygiene are publicly recognised and rewarded

Within the Counties, we believe that the benefits of intrducing this scheme are overwhelming for all parties and include:

• a more open and transpatent inspection and reporting system
• serious potential for reduced cases of food-borne illness
• improved standards and the maintenance of high standards of food hygiene in food businesses
• potentially more customers and greater profitability for good businesses
• visitors and tourists will feel more confident about eating out, or buying food in the area
• less frequent inspections thus releasing local authority resources for preventative and advisory work

Businesses have been  awarded a star rating based on the food hygiene standards identified at the time of the food hygiene inspection - and the results are available for potential customers to view on the internet.

Businesses have also been supplied with a certificate for them to display, hence the tagline 'Scores on the Doors'.

The star rating  varies from 5 stars for businesses who have achieved an excellent standard, to 0 stars where improvements are clearly required.

The areas which are rated are those which are directly under their control and are:

• Food Hygiene Legislation
• Structural Requirements for the premises
• Confidence in Management of the business.

A score is given for each area and the total determines the star rating achieved :

If you wish to view the results so far, visit the Scores on the Doors website