Check before you choose on Mother’s Day

Taking your mum for a meal to celebrate Mother’s Day on 10 March? Show her you care by checking the restaurant’s food hygiene rating as well as the menu.

That’s the advice from inspectors at Bury Council, who work with the Food Standards Agency to produce the Food Hygiene Rating Scheme. Restaurants, pubs, hotels, cafés, takeaways and other places that sell or serve food are given a food hygiene rating from 0 (worst) to 5 (best).

The ratings can be checked by looking at food.gov.uk/ratings or by downloading the free ‘food hygiene’ app. You can also look out for the distinctive green and black stickers that businesses are encouraged to display to tell their customers the rating they were given.

Councillor Gill Campbell, cabinet member for neighbourhoods and regeneration, said: ‘When dining out, you’ll choose a place where you like the food and know you’ll have a good time. It also makes sense to check out the food hygiene rating as well; you might be surprised by some of the results. It’s possible that a cheap takeaway might have a higher food hygiene rating than a smart, expensive restaurant.”

Catriona Stewart, Head of the Food Hygiene Ratings Team at the FSA, added: “The FHRS is all about putting the consumer first, giving people useful information on which to base their choice of where to eat. The FSA is working in partnership with Bury and other local authorities to roll out this scheme nationally. We recommend that when you eat out you choose the places with the higher ratings.”

There are estimated to be around a million cases of food poisoning every year in the UK, with about 20,000 people ending up in hospital.

ENDS

Press release issued: 5 March 2013.