To answer this question requires some understanding of how the Food Hygiene Rating Scheme (FHRS) score is generated from the general Food Standards Agency (FSA) food hygiene rating compiled following a premises hygiene inspection.
There are three components of the general FSA food hygiene rating taken into account to generate the FHRS score; these are:
- Premises Hygiene - the condition of the structure of your premises - its layout/design, cleanliness, lighting, ventilation, and other facilities
- Practice Hygiene - how hygienically food is handled - safe food preparation, cooking, re-heating, cooling and storage
- Confidence in Management (CIM) - how you manage and document food safety - implementing systems such as 'Safer food better business', record keeping, staff training, and your compliance history.
With regard to food allergen management, control and communication requirements, if there are shortfalls in measures taken to avoid unintended contamination and/or cross-contamination of menu items with allergenic food ingredients that have not been declared to the customer, these will impact as follows:
Supplying food products/menu items containing allergenic foods as ingredients that have not been declared to the customer or which the customer has specifically been assured are not ingredients in the food is a serious failing. Any systematic failure to put in place, implement and maintain adequate procedures to avoid such an occurrence, such as a lack of staff supervision, instruction or training will impact directly on the CIM score. The fact of any such contamination at an ingredient level may also be reflected in a lower Practice Hygiene rating.
Evident or significant risk of food allergen cross-contamination will usually result in a lower premises or practice hygiene score, dependent on the circumstances. If this is also due to systematic lack or failure in management procedures then this may also be reflected in a lower CIM score.
For more information about the FHRS scoring processes, please follow this link to the Food Standards Agency FHRS webpages:
Food Hygiene Rating Scheme (external website)