UK food hygiene,
by the numbers.
The Food Standards Agency publishes a score for every food business in Britain. Almost no one aggregates the full picture. We do, every 24 hours, for the entire UK.
The one-minute summary
- RatingCafe tracks 602,754 UK food venues across 360 local authorities with 200+ venues each.
- The weighted national average is 4.65 out of 5.
- 417,938 venues hold a 5-star rating, meaning "very good" on the day of inspection.
- 7,535 venues are currently at 0 or 1, flagged for urgent or major improvement.
- Data sourced from the UK Food Standards Agency open-data API, refreshed every 24 hours.
10 UK local authorities with the highest proportion of 0-1 ratings.
Live ranking by percentage of venues rated 0 (urgent improvement) or 1 (major improvement). Only authorities with at least 200 rated venues are included, to avoid small-sample noise.
| Rank | Authority | Venues | 0-1 count | % poor | Avg |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Waltham Forest | 1,969 | 189 | 9.60% | 3.99 |
| 2 | Newham | 2,607 | 221 | 8.48% | 3.97 |
| 3 | Bolton | 2,319 | 126 | 5.43% | 4.16 |
| 4 | Blackburn | 1,298 | 67 | 5.16% | 4.35 |
| 5 | Birmingham | 10,108 | 519 | 5.13% | 4.29 |
| 6 | Ealing | 3,517 | 173 | 4.92% | 4.17 |
| 7 | Hillingdon | 2,213 | 105 | 4.74% | 4.33 |
| 8 | Enfield | 2,425 | 109 | 4.49% | 4.23 |
| 9 | Barking and Dagenham | 1,387 | 62 | 4.47% | 4.21 |
| 10 | Woking | 753 | 30 | 3.98% | 4.47 |
10 UK local authorities with the highest share of 5-star venues.
| Rank | Authority | Venues | 5-star | % 5-star | Avg |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Thanet | 1,473 | 1,379 | 93.6% | 4.94 |
| 2 | East Lothian | 902 | 843 | 93.5% | 4.86 |
| 3 | North Lanarkshire | 2,596 | 2,421 | 93.3% | 4.88 |
| 4 | Wrexham | 1,184 | 1,098 | 92.7% | 4.93 |
| 5 | East Renfrewshire | 644 | 579 | 89.9% | 4.96 |
| 6 | Bassetlaw | 1,069 | 955 | 89.3% | 4.96 |
| 7 | Inverclyde | 625 | 555 | 88.8% | 4.81 |
| 8 | Ipswich | 1,117 | 985 | 88.2% | 4.92 |
| 9 | Fenland | 688 | 606 | 88.1% | 4.86 |
| 10 | Renfrewshire | 1,453 | 1,278 | 88.0% | 4.95 |
What inspectors actually write down before giving a 0 or a 1.
A zero-star outcome is never about a single missed tick. It is almost always a combination of findings across the three FSA scoring axes. From our reading of published inspection reports, the recurring patterns are:
Hygiene & safety
Temperature abuse and cross-contamination
Cooked food held outside safe temperature bands. Raw and ready-to-eat food stored together. Improper defrosting. Allergen handling gaps. This is the single most common axis behind zero-star ratings.
Structural compliance
Pests, cleanliness, and disrepair
Evidence of rodents or insects. Unclean food-contact surfaces. Broken refrigeration. Damaged walls or floors allowing pests to enter. The second-most common driver of a zero.
Confidence in management
No documented food safety system
Missing or improvised HACCP records. Staff without training certificates. Inability to demonstrate controls. Inspectors who cannot confirm a business knows its own standards will score management low, and management is often the decisive axis.
Want to read individual findings? Every venue page links to the venue's official FSA record. Start with the worst-rated page to see real cases.
Why the UK has two schemes, not one.
England, FHRS, voluntary display
The Food Hygiene Rating Scheme applies. Display of the window sticker is not legally required. This is why you rarely see a 0 or a 1 in a window, those owners have no obligation to put it there.
Wales, FHRS, mandatory display
The Food Hygiene Rating (Wales) Act 2013 makes display legally mandatory at the entrance of every food business. Non-display is a fixed-penalty offence.
Northern Ireland, FHRS, mandatory display
The Food Hygiene Rating Act (NI) 2016 makes display legally mandatory, with penalties for non-compliance. The scheme is otherwise identical to England and Wales.
Scotland, FHIS, binary outcome
Run by Food Standards Scotland, not the FSA. Uses the Food Hygiene Information Scheme: venues get either Pass or Improvement Required. No 0-5 score. Display is voluntary in most cases.
Verify this independently.
RatingCafe mirrors public FSA open data. The score on this page is the same one the inspector filed, but you can verify it at the source right now.
UK food hygiene, the honest answers.
Which UK areas have the worst food hygiene?
Based on the live Food Standards Agency dataset, the UK local authorities with the highest proportion of 0 and 1 ratings currently include Waltham Forest, Newham, Bolton, Blackburn, Birmingham. These figures are refreshed every 24 hours from FSA open data.
What is the average food hygiene rating in the UK?
The weighted national average across 602,754 rated venues in our dataset is 4.65 out of 5. 417,938 venues hold a 5, while 7,535 venues are currently at 0 or 1.
How many UK venues have a zero-star food hygiene rating?
Across RatingCafe's full FSA dataset, 937 UK food businesses currently hold a 0 (urgent improvement necessary) rating, and 6,598 hold a 1 (major improvement necessary). Most of these are in England, where display of the rating is voluntary.
Are these statistics up to date?
Yes. RatingCafe mirrors the FSA open-data feed every 24 hours. New inspections usually appear in this dataset within one working day of being published by the local authority.
Edited by James Thornton, Food Safety & Regulation editor.
Page auto-refreshed at build. Figures recomputed at each deploy from the live FSA open-data feed. Verified against FSA guidance and Food Standards Scotland.