Compulsory display by 2030?

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Will we see compulsory display of stickers in England by 2030? Garry Perry, deputy leader from Walsall council continues to call for compulsory display of stickers in England. However the reality is that the issue is officially “paused” and any attempt at introducing legislation is only planned be progressed “sometime in the next parliament”.

If you look at the timeline for the legislative process, consultation and phased introduction, even our predicted timescales of 2030 is now starting to look less realistic…

Express and Star 19/10/2023

‘Disgraceful’ food business owners in Walsall who put people’s lives at risk have prompted renewed calls to make ‘scores on the doors’ compulsory.Top of FormBottom of Form

A rat in the window of Walsall takeaway, spotted by Environmental Health officers. PIC: Walsall Council

Councillor Garry Perry, Walsall Council’s deputy leader for resilient communities, said forcing operators to publicly display their food hygiene ratings could stop poor practice in some businesses.

And he called on the Food Safety Agency to focus on the issue instead of imposing ‘bureaucratic regulations’ on local authorities.

Councillor Perry presented the Food Law Enforcement Service Plan at a meeting of Walsall Council’s cabinet on Wednesday.

He said more than 1,600 businesses across Walsall registered have a satisfactory or higher – three to five star – rating for food hygiene.

But he added five businesses had been taken to court and temporarily shut down due to infestations of rats, mice and cockroaches.

Councillor Perry said: “Who would want to buy or purchase food from premises with that sort of operation in place? Nobody, I hope.

“That is sometimes what we are faced with when our officers go into some of these premises.

However, I wish the Food Safety Agency will pay as much attention to making the ‘scores on the doors’ mandatory.

“They put in lots of burdensome bureaucratic regulations on local authorities instead of dealing with something which, in my opinion, would actually deal with a lot of these exceptions overnight.

“I’d like to think the vast majority of the public would know if that’s a ‘zero to three’ rating you’d think twice about going in them. I’m not saying boycott them but the onus should be on the business operator.

“It’s the only way we’ll get some of these rogues who think it’s fit to allow cockroaches to breed in a food premise and to allow rats to go unnoticed and unchecked with their faeces that lays across counters where they prepare raw and fresh food, thinking they’ll get away with it and putting the public at risk.

“People have died from this nationally, as they have from incorrectly labelled food and as they have from counterfeit goods. All these things impact on people’s lives.

“Every time we have this debate, I always say the same – ‘let’s fire off a letter to the Food Safety Agency’ asking for this to be mandated. We will keep up the pressure.

“We’ll continue to push that. The serious side to all this is the public health risk associated with these disgraceful business owners who, to me, are as bad as the fly-tippers who treat us with contempt.”

Express and Star

Food fraud now estimated to be costing UK £1.9Bn per year

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Food fraud now estimated to be costing UK £1.9Bn per year

The Food Standards Agency (FSA) recently performed targeted surveillance sampling of food across the country:

  • 20% out of 300 mince and processed meat products contained meat species not written on the label (although no horsemeat was detected);
  • 8 out of 101 lamb products contained beef;
  • 4 out of 375 herbs and spices samples had missing ingredients or were substituted with others;
  • 3 out of 40 samples of basmati rice contained other rice varieties (from 9 to 29% of the total volume);
  • 6 out of 39 dark chocolate samples contained milk proteins.

Taipei Scores on the Doors?

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Interesting to see recommendations from the Taipei times for the Government to improve public awareness and incentives for food businesses to comply. The concept of publishing inspection results on-line continues to gain momentum with France being the most notable country to join Australia(NSW), Canada, Denmark, New Zealand, Norway, Singapore, UK, USA [and let us know if we missed any]?

What next – www.scoresonthedoors.tp?

New Triple 5 award

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New Triple 5 award. Businesses in Worcestershire are now being recognised by their Local Authorities when they achieve three consecutive top scores. A letter, which can be displayed on the premises, together with a listing on the WRS website and local press coverage will reward businesses for consistency.

The following councils are participating in the new award:

Poisoned: the dirty truth about your food

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New food safety documentary on Netflix covering the major food scares in the USA over the last 30 years or so – Poisoned: the dirty truth about your food.

Much of this will be familiar to those who closely follow international food safety headlines – the Jack in the Box E.coli scandal; Camplobacter; Salmonella in chicken; contaminated peanuts etc – but there are some interesting subtleties. Lots of claims about the USA having the safest food system in the world, whilst highlighting inconsistencies in the way they system is set up to regulate that.

If you want to get a comparison of how the US compares to our own practices, this is a good summary.

Over three-quarters of all food business now get the top grade.

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We analysed the data going back 10 years to evaluate the effect of the Food Hygiene Rating Scheme on compliance in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. As you can see from the attached chart, there has been a steady growth to the point where 76% now achieve FHRS-5. Consumer awareness has never been higher and there is also evidence that the minimum standards many are prepared to accept has steadily increased over the years.

So it’s good news right?

Well yes of course it is good news, but there are still a couple of issues that need addressing:

  1. Compulsory display in England still has no legislative timetable.
  2. Where do we go from here?

To answer point 1, it seems we will have to wait until sometime in the next parliament before there is any prospect of progressing. Despite 93% of consumers surveyed who had heard of the scheme, saying they would like to see this. Of course, if you live in Wales or Northern Ireland, food businesses have been required to display for years now. Let’s hope whoever wins the election regards this as a higher priority.

As far as the second point is concerned, where do you sit? Is the 2010 criteria good enough? Will we ever get the remaining 24% all the way to FHRS-5, or at what point does this tail off? Should there be additional incentives for the 76% to further improve?

What many may not remember is that the current top FHRS-5 band only kicks-in at the same point as the original Scores on the Doors 4 star rating. Actually, it has 4 sub-grades within it. So in many cases a rating of 5 will still include some minor incompliances. Back in 2010, it was designed like this due our obligations under EC legislation not to Gold plate. But of course we now have the power to increase the top grade which would provide incentives to improve even further. Just like Ofsted did with schools a few years ago.

Is it time to review the grading?

Interested in your comments.