Data provided by online compliance training provider Virtual College indicates that close to 15% of all food manufacturers are currently awaiting a hygiene inspection.
This means they do not hold a hygiene rating of between zero and five and are instead noted as “Awaiting inspection” by the FSA.
Virtual College analysed the records of 12,039 UK food manufacturers and said that, besides the 1,476 businesses explicitly noted as “Awaiting inspection”, a further 2,588 (21.5%) manufacturer records had no live publicly available rating.
Overall, food manufacturers tend to post strong results when inspected, with just 1.87% of premises listed as “Need improvement”, or scoring a rating of 0-2.
The data identified takeaways and sandwich shops as the biggest hygiene risk within the sector, with 5.68% requiring improvement and only 61% scoring a perfect five rating.
The failure rate stands at 5.21% for other food retailers, while farmers and growers sit at the opposite extreme, with a rate of just 0.25%.
Schools, colleges and universities posted the lowest hygiene risk of any category nationwide, with just 0.43% rated 0-2 and 91.06% achieving a five rating.
Hospitals, childcare and care premises followed closely at 0.73%. Both categories comfortably outperformed every hospitality-facing business type in the dataset.
Jamie Ashforth, business and strategy director at Virtual College, shares advice for food businesses looking to safeguard their compliance standing:
“Don’t wait for an inspector to flag an issue. Regular internal audits against Food Standards Agency criteria help catch problems before they affect your public rating.
“Our data shows takeaway and sandwich shops consistently underperform other premises types, so operators in this category should focus disproportionate attention on food handling and storage practices.”
He continued: “High staff turnover in hospitality also means hygiene training can’t be a one-off induction exercise. Refresher training should be built into every shift pattern change.”
Food importers and exporters have the highest awaiting-inspection rate in the dataset at 27.22%, followed by farmers and growers at 24.71% and mobile caterers at 17.17%.
However, all three sectors are typically considered low risk. The inspection backlog is notably lower among takeaway businesses, where the figure stands at 8.30%.
