Waive the right of appeal period to display your rating sooner

Businesses now have the right to waive the appeal period to have their new food hygiene rating displayed as soon as possible.

When you get a food hygiene inspection and a new food hygiene rating it currently takes 28 days from the date of inspection before this new rating is made public on the Food Standards Agency (FSA) website at:www.food.gov.uk/ratings

This is to allow for the 21 day appeal period to pass should a business disagree with the rating given and want to appeal this.

The FSA website shows your old rating but also states 'Recently inspected – new rating to be published soon'

Only those business that get a Food Hygiene Ratings of '5 - very good' will be published as soon as the information is uploaded. We currently upload our data on a weekly basis.

What you need to do

The business owner or manager can request that a rating is published before the end of the appeal period.  This request must be made in writing to us.  You must include: details of who you are; the name and address of the business; your contact information; the date of the inspection; and the rating given.  We will review the request and will usually publish the rating early. We will shortly be adding a new template form on the council website to make this request.

Businesses can still make an appeal against the rating, have a ‘right to reply’ and can request a re-visit to re-rate inspection.