Do you care about hygiene rating?

[beckietheconqueror]

Hi everyone!

Just wondering. Do you care about hygiene rating?

My husband likes to eat in random local fried chicken/burger shops, even when their hygiene rating is 1 or 2 stars.

There's one around the corner that looks dodgy, is always empty, and has a 1 star hygiene rating. He orders from them and a couple more regularly and calls me a snob from not wanting to.

AIBU to be cautious about it?

Never pay attention to it

Not particularly you could have a kitchen operating theatre standard clean if they haven’t ticked the boxes and got there paperwork in order they can get a 1 or 0

its as much about paperwork and procedures rather than food safety and cleanliness

just because they got a 1 doesn’t mean it’s dirty or rodent infested as some posters think

Yes... and also no..

A place I sometimes eat from has had a 1 (back to a 4 now) - because stroppy arse owner did not sort out the proper allergy information poster and put it up. Not an issue for ME, as I have no food allergies, but clearly a very serious issue for someone who does.

However if I didn't know the place well (and where I live, I often do as my sister delivers for many places and knows them well), then yeah, I would avoid a 1 star/2 star rated place.

Worth keeping in mind though, 5 star rated business are checked less often, they may have a 5 star rating for a couple of years without a check, and in that time standards may have slipped dramatically.

I’ve eaten from a three before. It looked a bit grotty with dirty floors, but you could also see them cooking and it looked okay. Funnily enough it was my ex that encouraged it as I wouldn’t have chosen to buy food from there, but it was delicious.

I do work in a government job (not UK) for the equivalent of the Food Standards Agency and periodically, I have a look at the “Outbreaks” section of the emergency planning app. Almost all V&D outbreaks from food preparation outlets I’ve read about were norovirus, sometimes unknown source, sometimes from a member of staff who felt vaguely unwell, but still came to work. I suspect the hygiene rating wouldn’t make any difference at all to whether those outbreaks had happened.

They’re also surprisingly rare, given I can see data for the entire country. You’d be pretty unlucky for it to happen, from what I can see, which is good for me, as I’m also an emetophobe.

So I guess there’s a marginally higher chance of getting ill from somewhere with a poor hygiene rating, but the chances of it happening are probably still quite low.

I don't think it's anything to do with snobbishness, it's about wanting to avoid being ill.

I don't check before I visit, but if I got there and it was a 3 or below I wouldn't eat there, I'd go elsewhere.

Inspections can be totally unannounced and an establishment can be closed down there and then. On the spot. This often happens when a LA hygiene team are tipped off.

Training delivered by your employer directly. I have a food hygiene certificate, training is outsourced to an online company. A bunch of videos followed by multiple choice questions. It’s box ticking, pretty sure I didn’t learn anything.

I work in corporate hospitality and don’t make anything. It’s all done by caterers/ a local deli. I do decant soup into bowls and do coffee/ tea though.

My partner got food poisoning and ended up in hospital and that restaurant had a 5 star rating so it proves nothing, never look now.

I do look at hygiene ratings yes but most of the restaurants we like are five star anyway, ie, we don't just like them because they're five star but because of everything else they are too - the cusine, the staff, the service, the environment etc. Though I suppose that all goes hand in hand with five star hygiene too.

But the worst food poisoning I've ever had was from a McDonalds, a company with huge corporate policies and systems that should all but make it impossible. I was ill for nearly a week as were all of our group who ate there. It was absolutely awful.

No, because we don;t have the same system in Scotland. It's a pass/fail.

My sister in law loves a one star. Her favourite flavour of one star is one of those places covered in fake flowers and neon signs that look impossible to properly clean.

The Chinese I have used for years has recently got a 0!! Suffice to say I’ve not been back.

I don’t reckon my kitchen would score very highly though to be fair and we’ve never been sick .

To be fair, you're not cooking dozens of different meals a day in a busy hurried situation, and you store a relatively small amount of hopefully fairly fresh ingredients, you don't let thawing meat drip blood onto other food, you don't re-heat rice, and you'd probably react swiftly if you found mouse crap where you keep food, and you don't let 'flocculent filth' build up on the walls of your kitchen. I once heard on Woman's Hour a lady doctor, a professor of epidemiology, talking about food poisoning. One thing that stuck with me was when the interviewer asked her 'What is your one piece of advice for people at home?' She replied in a plummy voice, 'Boil your dishcloth!'.

I used to work for a bakery in a supermarket. It's so bloody easy to get and keep a five star rating, I have no idea why everyone can't manage it. We had a checklist and it was signed off by a manager every day. It's really not difficult stuff that was on it.

Yes I use the hygiene rating to help me decide if I'm going to buy food from there. 4 or 5 only for me.

Things have to be pretty grim to get 1 or 2 stars.

In house training is where the company themselves have a suitable training course. Usually large companies

YANBU> My nickname is Ms Demestos. enough said.

I've never thought to look!

I never bother to check. I have a stomach like iron. I like dives.

Nah. Maybe if it was a 1 or 2 I'd think twice but as PP say, you can drop points for trivial things. And my kitchen is definitely not a 5 star establishment!

I go more on reputation and whether they seem slack tbh - sometimes you can just tell by the vibe of a place whether the staff are likely to know or care about hygiene.

I managed to get a 5* food hygiene rating for my rented flat a few years ago.

There was chronic damp, the kitchen itself was 20 years old and starting to shows its age, carpet in the room where I stored ingredients (landlord wouldn't let me change it) and I own a dog who wasn't allowed in the kitchen during working hours but had to traverse it to get to the garden.

If I can get a 5 there, it shouldn't be outside the grasp of anyone else to get a 5.

The paperwork isn't hard - there are companies out there (like NCASS) which will pretty much do it for you - you just have to fill out the temperature records.

There is a bit of a myth that many poor food hygiene ratings are 'just paperwork'. That's rarely the case. If you look up the rating on the FSA website it's broken down into 3 categories - and only the 'management' section is about paperwork. It's very rare to see a business with a poor subscore for management but a good subscore for hygienic food handling and structural complaince.

I don't eat at anything less than a 4.

YANBU.
I check the food hygiene rating every single time before I order from somewhere new or where I haven't ordered for a few months.
Each to their own, but I think everyone else should do this too, to obtain the most up to date information.

We ordered a Chinese from a takeaway we'd ordered from in the past. After I ordered I checked the rating and it was 1! There were also some negative reviews. We still ate it and it was fine but I'd probably go elsewhere in future.
I wonder what my kitchen would be rated as. I'd be interested to know

Yes, 4 minimum for us, 5 for young children.

No. Never occurs to me to think about it, altho I usually choose carefully anyway so a fried chicken shop wouldn't appeal just due to the type of food.
I have never known anybody check this, tbh.