📐 Data Methodology

Data Source

All food hygiene rating data comes directly from the Food Standards Agency (FSA) Food Hygiene Rating Scheme (FHRS) API v2. This is the same official data displayed on the FSA's own website.

We do not scrape, estimate, or modify individual ratings. Every rating value, inspection date, and sub-score shown on this site is sourced directly from the FSA API without alteration.

Coverage

Coverage includes England, Wales, and Northern Ireland — the jurisdictions covered by the FHRS. Scotland operates the Food Hygiene Information Scheme (FHIS), which uses pass/fail rather than a 0–5 scale; Scottish data is included where available but not ranked.

Update Frequency

There is typically a delay of 1–14 days between an inspection occurring and the rating appearing on the FSA database. This delay is controlled by the local authority, not by us. Our data is as current as the FSA's.

Raw Data vs Calculated Metrics

How to Verify Any Data Point

Every establishment shown on this site can be verified directly on the FSA's official website:

We include a "Verify on FSA" link alongside individual establishment records throughout the guide. If you find any discrepancy between our data and the FSA's current data, it is likely due to a rating being updated between our last sync and the time you checked. Our data refreshes daily.

Chain Identification

The FSA does not formally identify chain restaurants. We identify chains by normalising business names (removing punctuation, standardising case) and grouping establishments with matching normalised names. A business must have 10 or more locations to be classified as a chain in our rankings, and 50 or more to appear in the main leaderboard.

This method may occasionally group unrelated businesses with the same name, or split a chain that uses inconsistent naming across locations. We review and correct these where identified.

Area & City Rankings

Area pages are based on postcode districts (e.g. SW1, M1, B1) — the first part of a UK postcode. City rankings aggregate all postcode districts mapped to a city via the postcodes.io API.

Areas must have at least 5 establishments to be ranked. Cities must have at least 100 establishments to appear in the leaderboard. Rankings are recomputed daily after the data sync.

Rating Change Tracking

The FSA does not provide historical rating data. We began tracking rating changes on 28 March 2026 by comparing each day's sync against the previous day's stored data. When a rating changes, we record the previous rating, new rating, all sub-scores, and the date of change.

This means our historical data begins from our tracking start date. We cannot retroactively determine rating changes that occurred before this date.

Licence & Attribution

Food hygiene rating data is published by the Food Standards Agency under the Open Government Licence v3.0. This licence permits copying, publishing, distributing, and adapting the data for commercial and non-commercial purposes, provided the source is acknowledged.

Crown Copyright © Food Standards Agency. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

Press & Data Enquiries

If you are a journalist, researcher, or local authority officer and have questions about our data or methodology, please contact us at hello@flux-iot.com.

We can provide data extracts, commentary on trends, and verification of specific data points on request.