Wokingham

Wokingham Food businesses from kebab vans to Michelin star restaurants in the Wokingham Borough have been served up a star rating to reflect their hygiene and management – which the public can view from today (Monday June 23).

Businesses that prepare and serve food, including restaurants, grocers, cafés and take-aways have been rated from a half-baked zero stars to a tasty five stars under the Scores on the Doors scheme, based on their most recent inspection by Wokingham Borough Council’s environmental health team.

From today anyone wanting to dine in the Wokingham Borough can log on to www.wokingham.gov.uk/scores to make an informed choice about where they eat based on the businesses last food hygiene and management inspection results.

All food businesses that need to be regularly inspected by environmental health, apart from newly opened ones that have yet to be inspected, have been given a star from zero to five. The ratings are based on scores for food hygiene and safety, structure and cleaning, management and control and are allocated as follows:

· Five stars – excellent
· Four stars – very good
· Three stars – good
· Two stars – broadly compliant
· One star – poor
· Zero stars – major improvement needed

There are more than 100 food businesses in the Wokingham Borough that are so well managed or considered such a “low-risk” that they do not need to be regularly inspected, unless their standards are questioned by the public or the environmental health team believe their standards have dropped. These businesses will automatically be given a special status as they surpass even the “excellent” benchmark.

As well as giving consumers more information about where they eat, Scores on the Doors will also aim to encourage food businesses with poorer hygiene and management practices to improve. Those businesses with zero, one and two stars will be re-inspected more frequently and given more help to improve from the council, so that they have every opportunity to gain more stars.

In the Wokingham Borough the majority of food businesses have three, four and five stars – with only five per cent of businesses having zero stars and seven per cent having one star.

The star ratings will change according to the results of the next inspection by the environmental health team so businesses can gain stars, lose stars or retain the same number of stars.

To mark the start of Scores on the Doors in the Wokingham Borough a launch celebration was held earlier today, attended by representatives of five-star businesses, the environmental health team and special guest, Cllr Barrie Patman, deputy mayor of the Wokingham Borough.

Cllr Barrie Patman, deputy mayor of the Wokingham Borough, said: “Scores on the Doors is a way of giving everyone who dines in the Wokingham Borough the chance to find out how well restaurants and cafés are managed and how hygienic they are, so they can take that into account when choosing somewhere to eat.

“It will also encourage those businesses not performing well in the hygiene and management stakes to clean-up their act.”

Wokingham Borough Council