Food outlet hygiene standards checked at touch of a button

Information provided by environmental health officers at West Yorkshire councils is placed on a website, www.scoresonthedoors.org.uk, which rates standards from zero to five stars.

Thousands of food outlets are rated on the website, based on inspections by hygiene experts at each local authority.

A new iPhone application is making it even easier to find out how clean a restaurant or takeaway is.

Those with an iPhone 3GS or above can now find out how many stars a food business has got by simply pointing their phone at the premises.

The Scores on the Doors website lists restaurants and takeaways across Leeds, Huddersfield, Bradford and other West Yorkshire towns.

It also includes those schools which cook food on site or those premises that sell ready-to-eat food.

These premises are scored from one to five stars, with five being the top award.

Previously, to find out a score, people could either log on to the website or they could use a text service on their mobile phones. These services are still available but in addition the company behind the website has developed a new iPhone application

iPhone owners can now simply point their phone at a food business and it will tell you how many stars it has.

During the first six months of this year more than 118,000 requests for information were made on the website to find out where to eat in Leeds, and there were 7,541 hits on the site from people wanting to know of places near their postcode.

Leeds City Council's executive board member for Environmental Services, Tom Murray, said yesterday: "This is a great new way that makes it even easier for people to find out how their favourite restaurant has scored.

"More and more food premises are reaching five stars which means standard of hygiene and maintenance are improving all the time."

To download the application for free go to the iTunes application store and search for Food Hygiene under the lifestyle section or go to http://bit.ly/ukfoodhygiene

Leeds Council is among several authorities working to improve standards at takeaways and restaurants.

Making public the hygiene standards is one way of pushing up standards as lower rated establishments are likely to get fewer patrons.

Last year the city council announced that the worst takeaways and restaurants in would be getting extra help to push up standards.

Leeds Council successfully applied for a 33,000 grant from the Government's Food Standards Agency to help food businesses boost their hygiene standards.

Around 300 of the lowest-rated premises in the city – most of which scored none or just one star in the Scores on the Doors Scheme – are being offered help with completing their food safety management plan, which identifies all the hazards which could contaminate the food a business sells, and helps them put in measures to stop contamination happening.

The plan is checked when the business is inspected by Environmental Health staff to make sure the systems are sound and food is safe to eat.

However, the plan can be difficult or complex for some businesses to fill in, so the council will use its grant money to help provide assistance and boost food hygiene in the city.

The worst 150 premises in terms of food hygiene in Leeds have been offered a free three-hour coaching session on-site to help them complete the food safety plan.