Correct a listing
How to get a food hygiene rating corrected, and how home-based traders can ask about personal data.
Factual corrections are owned by the local authority
HygieneCheck does not inspect businesses and does not set or change ratings. We republish the official Food Standards Agency open data, which is supplied by the local authority (the council) responsible for inspecting the business. The council is the data owner. If something is factually wrong — the rating, the address, the business name, the business type, or a business that has closed, moved or changed hands — the correction has to be made at source by that council.
Once the council updates its record, the change flows through the FSA open data and we pick it up automatically — usually within a day, because we refresh daily.
How to contact the right council
- Find the business using the search box and open its page.
- On the business page, look for the Local authority block — it names the council and links to its area page.
- Open that area page: it lists the local authority’s official website and contact details. Use those to ask the council to review or correct the rating.
- The council will advise on next steps. Businesses also have a statutory right to reply and, in some cases, a right to request a re-inspection — ask the council about these.
You can also confirm the official record directly at ratings.food.gov.uk.
Home-based traders & personal data
Some food businesses are run from a private home. We take privacy seriously: HygieneCheck does not publish any residential address detail beyond what the Food Standards Agency already makes public in its open data. We do not add map pins or details that the FSA has chosen to withhold.
If you are a home-based trader and you believe a listing exposes genuinely personal data — for example, your home address shown as a business address — you can ask us to review and, where appropriate, suppress that personal detail on this site. We honour reasonable removal requests for genuinely personal data. (Note that suppressing a listing here does not change the council’s record or the FSA open data; for that you must also contact the council as described above.)
Request a personal-data review
Use the short form below to open a pre-filled email to us. There is no account and nothing is stored on this page — it simply prepares an email in your mail app.
Prefer to write the email yourself? Email [email protected] and include the FHRSID or business name plus the reason for your request.