The general public can now discover what your Food Hygiene Rating by simply pointing their smartphone in the direction of your premises.
The Food Standards Agency has created a ‘phone app’ which means the general public now have ‘behind the scenes’ information at their fingertips via their mobile phones. This free app provides information on the hygiene standards in restaurants, pubs, cafes, takeaways, hotels and other places people can eat out – this includes your pub!
Customers are increasingly choosing somewhere to eat out based not upon the fact a pub looks amazing or it has good reviews, but upon the Food Hygiene Rating for your pub even if the you’re not displaying it.
Food hygiene ratings have greater influence over a diner’s choice of venue than customer service, according to research by food safety management company Checkit.
66% of respondents to a survey carried out on behalf of Checkit for its report “The Financial Impact of Getting Food Safety Wrong” cited bad food hygiene as a reason for not returning to a restaurant compared to 16% of diners who said slow or bad service would put them off.
Of the 1,101 people surveyed, 75% would never visit a food outlet implicated in a food poisoning or hygiene incident unless it had changed hands, highlighting the need for effective food safety management in restaurants looking to stay in business.
The type of venue made no difference, either, the research found with sandwich shops, pubs and fine-dining restaurants equally as likely to put-off customers if their food hygiene rating was two or below.
People Can Now See Exactly What Goes On Inside Your Kitchen!
This free app is so simple to use and it’s already proving very popular in helping people to choose whether or not to eat at particular venues. Users enter the town they are in or the postcode to find information on local businesses or they can simply hold up their phone and the app will tell them what rating the food businesses in that area have.
What This Means For Your Pub
Food businesses, such as pubs, can no longer rely on how welcoming their premises look or how good their advertising is as the public are now choosing whether or not they are going to eat there based on the cleanliness of the kitchen.
If you’ve not got a five star food hygiene rating then this could seriously affect your business.
What You Need To Do
If you don’t want to lose out to your competitors then you need to ensure that you stay ahead of the game and at the top of the choices of places to eat by securing a five star food safety rating.
(From the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health)
See also:
Cross Contamination • Cleaning The Kitchen • Freezing, Chilling & Displaying Food • Hazard & Critical Control Points (HACCP)
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