Pubs and bars rank highly for food hygiene

In its newly released 2022 UK Food Hygiene Report​, food blog Pantry & Larder analysed more than 150,000 UK businesses, including pubs, bars, restaurants, takeaways and cafes to understand the current state of food hygiene in the UK.

The study used data provided by the Food Standards Agency (FSA), which awards a hygiene rating of between 0 and 5 for every venue it inspects.

Pub and bar inspections

Pubs scored an average rating of 4.58 based on 24,823 inspections of pub venues with 737 failing, which represents a 2.97% failure percentage.

Meanwhile, bars had a higher average rating of 4.59 with 233 venues failing their inspections from a total of 6,469 sites, which represents a 3.6% failure percentage.

The study showed pubs and bars are way ahead of the worst rated food venues, which are fried chicken shops, which have the worst average food hygiene rating at 3.91 with one in 10 failing its latest hygiene inspection. Close behind are Chinese and Indian restaurants, with approximately 9% failing their latest inspection. As for chain outlets with the most failing restaurants, Subway had the most with 20.

Birmingham scores low

The report also looked at hygiene ratings at each local authority and found Birmingham ranked last with an average rating of just 3.79 while Rhondda Cynon Taff (3.83) and Waltham Forest (3.86) bring up the rear were next lowest. The Isles of Scilly, Dorset and Stockton-On-Tees were found to be the three most hygienic areas in the UK, scoring 4.90, 4.85 and 4.81 respectively.

In London, the boroughs of Waltham Forest (3.86), Ealing (3.91), Newham (3.97) and Enfield (3.98) were the only areas achieving less than 4 stars while Kensington & Chelsea (4.8), City of London (4.69) and Greenwich (4.64) were the highest ranked places for food hygiene.