Plain-English definitions
Food hygiene glossary
Every term you’ll see on a food hygiene rating — the schemes, the scores and the status labels — explained simply, with links to learn more.
- Food Hygiene Rating Scheme (FHRS)
- The scheme used in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, run by the Food Standards Agency with local authorities. After an inspection a business is given a rating from 5 (Very Good) down to 0 (Urgent Improvement Necessary). See what each rating means.
- Food Hygiene Information Scheme (FHIS)
- The equivalent scheme in Scotland. Instead of a 0–5 number it records a result of Pass or Improvement Required. FHRS vs FHIS explained.
- Food Standards Agency (FSA)
- The UK government body responsible for food safety. It runs the rating schemes and publishes the open data this site is built on. We are not affiliated with the FSA. About the data.
- Local authority & Environmental Health Officer (EHO)
- Food businesses are inspected by their local authority’s environmental health team. The EHO is the qualified officer who carries out the inspection and decides the rating.
- The 0–5 rating
- A snapshot of standards at the time of the last inspection — not a food-quality or taste score. It can change at the next visit. 5 is the best result; 0 means urgent improvement is necessary.
- Hygiene score
- One of the three inspection scores behind the rating — how hygienically food is handled (preparation, cooking, cooling, storage). It is scored in bands where a lower number is better (0 is best). It is not on the 0–5 scale.
- Structural score
- How well the premises are kept — cleanliness, layout, lighting, ventilation, pest control and facilities. Like the other scores, lower is better.
- Confidence in management score
- How confident the officer is that the business can keep standards up — its food-safety systems, records and management. Lower is better. The three scores are added up and the total decides the overall 0–5 rating.
- Pass / Improvement Required
- The two FHIS (Scotland) results. Pass means the business met the legal requirements at the inspection; Improvement Required means one or more issues must be addressed.
- Awaiting inspection
- A business is in the scheme but has not yet had its first inspection (often a new business). No rating is shown until it is inspected. What “awaiting inspection” means.
- Awaiting publication
- The business has been inspected and a rating decided, but it has not yet appeared in the published data. It usually appears within a couple of weeks.
- Exempt
- Some low-risk premises (for example certain newsagents or chemists selling only wrapped goods) are exempt from being rated, so they carry no rating.
- HACCP
- Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points — the internationally recognised system businesses use to identify and control food-safety hazards. Good HACCP practice supports the confidence-in-management score.
- Safer Food, Better Business (SFBB)
- A free FSA food-safety management pack widely used by small caterers and retailers to meet their legal obligations — the kind of system an officer looks for when judging management.
- Right to reply
- Businesses can submit a right to reply to explain what they have done since the inspection. Where one exists it is published alongside the rating on the FSA site.
- Re-rating & appeal
- A business that has made improvements can request a re-inspection for a new rating, and can appeal a rating it believes is wrong. How a business can challenge a rating.
- Display of the rating
- Display rules differ by nation: in Wales and Northern Ireland businesses must display their sticker by law; in England it is voluntary. Do businesses have to display their rating?