Best and worst high street chains for food hygiene revealed

Pub chain JD Wetherspoon and coffee house Pret A Manger are the two highest-rated food chains when it comes to hygiene, with family friendly restaurant Hungry Horse ranked the worst. The Food Standards Agency (FSA) published the figures analysing the outlets of the 20 biggest high street chains based on the number of branches they have in the UK, with each branch given a hygiene rating from zero to five, with five being the best.

The data reveals Wetherspoon and Pret both received a rating of five at 93.1% of their stores, well above the overall average of 83.7%, followed by McDonald's, with 92.9% of its restaurants scoring five, and Starbucks in fourth (91%).

At the other end of the scale, Hungry Horse was only given a five-star rating at 66.1% of its branches making it the lowest of the 20 chains, with Caffe Nero (66.9%) and pub chain Harvester (67.5%) ranked 18<sup>th and 19<sup>th respectively. Pizza Hut and KFC were found to be the chain which had the highest percentage of outlets with a '0' rating for hygiene, both at 0.2%.

Catriona Stewart, who heads up the FSA's Food Hygiene Ratings Scheme, said the data showed high street chains were taking food hygiene seriously. She added: "We want to build on the success of the scheme and reduce consumer risk even further by encouraging people to 'look before they book'.

"Telling people about hygiene standards in food outlets in a way that is clear and easy to understand has made a real difference. We have seen standards improve and more and more businesses are able to show their customers that they take food hygiene seriously."

Wetherspoon chairman Tim Martin added: "Food hygiene is of paramount importance to our customers and rightly so. Our pub management and staff work hard to ensure that our pubs offer customers the highest levels of food hygiene at all times.

"We are extremely pleased that our pubs offer the best standards of food hygiene in the FSA ratings over the past five years and we will strive to maintain and improve our ratings in the coming months and years."