Ever wondered just what horrors lurk in the kitchens of your local restaurant or takeaway – or even school or nursing home? Away from home and looking for somewhere clean and safe to eat?
The UK Food Safety Agency has released free apps for Android and iOS to let you know if a restaurant, takeaway or food shop you want to eat at or buy food from has good food hygiene standards:
“The food hygiene rating or inspection result given to a business reflects the standards of food hygiene found on the date of inspection or visit by the local authority”.
Ratings vary from 0 (urgent improvement necessary) to 5 (very good). Although all participating UK businesses should have received a rating, there is no legal requirement for them to display it on the premises – doesn’t take a rocket scientist to work out that those with a bad rating won’t!
Using the apps you can quickly find out their rating – it doesn’t give details as to why the rating was awarded (possibly too scary to read!) but the scale of 0 to 5 should help avoid a dodgy dinner… There is also a search facility on the Agency website.
Android and iOS Free Apps – You can search by:
- your current location
- business name (or part of the business name)
- town/city
- postcode
You can sort results by:
- closeness
- food hygiene rating
- business name
- business type
Android App
Free
No adverts
2.6MB
Available for Android 2.x – may have issues on 4.x (Ice Cream Sandwich)
Download from Google Play here.
iOS App
Free
No adverts
1.6MB
Available for iPhone, iPod touch and iPad
Requires iOS 5.1 or later.
Download from App Store here.
Food Safety Agency Website Search
As well as the mobile apps you can also do a standard search using the UK Food Standards Agency website here.
Quick or advanced searches are available and you can can filter by business name, rating, business type, location and local authority.
Conclusion
The Agency does note that the food hygiene rating is not a guide to food quality.
However, it is well worth knowing in advance which businesses have high standards of food hygiene – before you buy…
[via: HUKD]
