Food Hygiene Inspection Scheme business guidance

The Food Hygiene Information Scheme (FHIS) is a local authority and Food Standards Scotland partnership initiative. It applies to all businesses that supply food to consumers in Scotland. 

The scheme provides consumers with information about hygiene standards in food premises at the time they're inspected. It effectively 'opens the door' to the kitchen or food areas in your business.

Inspections are carried out by a local authority food safety officer. They check that your business complies with food hygiene law and that food is safe to eat. 

Your business is then given a certificate and/or sticker to display on the door or window of your premises, showing your FHIS rating.

FHIS covers more than 54,000 food businesses in Scotland.

The scheme is designed to give straightforward information about how each food outlet fared at its last food hygiene inspection carried out by its local authority. The inspection outcome applies to a business trading at a particular address, so that a change of business operator at a given address will require a fresh assessment.

• Pass: A 'Pass' indicates that the business broadly met the legal requirements. These requirements include the conditions found and the management procedures in place for providing safe food.
• Improvement Required: Where a business has failed to meet these requirements it will be issued with an 'Improvement Required' certificate.

• Exempt Premises: A very small number of premises may be registered as food businesses in circumstances where it is unlikely that customers will view them as food premises. The assessment for such premises will have concluded that the food safety risk is negligible. 

  In such cases (and only with the agreement of the business), a certificate will not be issued and the information on the local authority website indicates that the business is currently exempt from the Food Hygiene Information Scheme.

• Awaiting inspection: Where a business has not yet been inspected, it will be issued with a temporary certificate advising consumers of that fact. This will appear as 'Awaiting Inspection' on the website. Premises will also require to be re-inspected where they have changed ownership.

If you see information that does not appear to be correct for example a business that has ceased or started trading, contact your local authority.

In order to ensure that the scheme is fair to businesses, it has been designed to include a number of safeguards. These are:

• request for a re-visit (when improvements have been made)
• right to reply
• right to appeal