Food Hygiene

The Borough of Fareham has approximately 550 commercial premises where food is sold, distributed, manufactured or handled.

Environmental Health Officers visit these premises on a regular basis to ensure good food hygiene practices are being used. When carrying out these inspections, officers work to Codes of Practice produced by the Food Standards Agency. In following these Codes, officers are able to produce a risk assessment for each premises that determines the minimum frequency of visits per year.

Additionally, officers will investigate complaints or concerns on behalf of the public regarding a premises or food purchase.

An Environmental Health Officer is on duty office hours and a 24 hour emergency service is available which will respond to complaints within 30 minutes.

Food Hygiene Rating System

Fareham Borough Council has adopted the national ‘Food Hygiene Rating Scheme' which was officially launched during National Food Safety Week (6-13 June 2011).

The ‘Food Hygiene Rating Scheme’ is a local authority/Food Standards Agency partnership initiative. The national scheme provides consumers with information about hygiene standards in food premises at the time they are inspected by local food safety officers to check compliance with legal requirements – the food hygiene rating given reflects the inspection findings.

The purpose is to allow consumers to make informed choices about the places where they eat out or shop for food, thereby encouraging businesses to improve their hygiene standards.

The hygiene standards found at the time of inspection are rated on a scale of “0” to “5”. At the bottom of the scale is ‘0’ – this means urgent improvement is required. At the top of the scale is ‘5’ – this means the hygiene standards are very good.

By the end of June 2011 40% of local authorities in England will take part in this scheme. The food hygiene rating of a food business is displayed on the Food Standards Agency’s website at

www.food.gov.uk/ratings (opens an external hyperlink)

If you would like more information, please contact the Department of Regulatory and Democratic Services on Tel: 01329 236100 or email regulatory@fareham.gov.uk