Guide
What happens in an EHO inspection
An environmental health officer turns up without an appointment, watches your kitchen work, reads your paperwork and talks to your staff. Here is the visit in order, what each part feeds into, and what can follow it.
Notice given
None required
Officers may enter business premises at all reasonable hours, so routine inspections are usually unannounced.
What is assessed
3 things
Food handling, the physical condition of the premises, and how you manage food safety.
The visit, in order
Six stages of an inspection
- They arrive without an appointment
- There is no requirement to give a food business advance notice: under regulation 16 of the Food Safety and Hygiene (England) Regulations 2013 an authorised officer may enter business premises at all reasonable hours to check compliance. (A private dwelling-house is different — 24 hours' notice applies there.) Ask for ID, then let them get on with it; they are forming a view from the moment they walk in.
- They watch the kitchen working
- Deliveries and goods-in, chilled and frozen storage, separation of raw and ready-to-eat, cooking and cooling, reheating, probe use, hand washing, cloths and sanitisers, and how staff behave when nobody is prompting them.
- They look at the premises
- Floors, walls, surfaces and equipment condition, layout and workflow, ventilation and lighting, hand wash basins and hot water, pest proofing and evidence of activity, waste and external areas.
- They ask for your paperwork
- Your food safety management system — a documented procedure based on HACCP principles, which for most small caterers means a completed Safer Food, Better Business pack — plus temperature records, cleaning schedules, delivery and supplier records, probe calibration, staff training records and your allergen information.
- They talk to your staff
- Often the most revealing part. Whoever is on shift will be asked how they handle allergen requests, what temperature something is cooked to, or what they do if a fridge is running warm. The answers are evidence of how well the system is actually used.
- They tell you what they found
- Expect verbal feedback before the officer leaves, followed in writing. The rating reflects all three things they have assessed — how hygienically food is handled, the physical condition of the premises, and how you manage keeping food safe. Exactly what your council sends and how quickly varies, so ask on the day when you will get it and what happens next.
Afterwards
What an officer can do
- Written advice or recommendations
- The common outcome. Items to correct, with the officer expecting them done by the next visit.
- Formal action
- Where the law requires it, an officer has statutory powers going beyond advice — for example requiring specified work, or restricting the use of a process or piece of equipment. Which notice applies, and the time you are given, depends on what they found. Read anything served on you carefully and take advice quickly.
- Closure and prosecution
- The most serious end of the scale, for cases involving risk to health or serious or repeated failures. Uncommon, and in my experience rarely a surprise to the business it happens to.
Readiness
What should be ready today
- Your food safety management system out and up to date, not in a box in the office
- Temperature and cleaning records completed as work happens
- Dated staff training records, including allergens
- Allergen information for every dish, available to whoever is serving
- A named person who can walk the officer through the system
Where this applies
The scheme is not the same across the UK
This page describes the Food Hygiene Rating Scheme as it operates in England, which is where I work. The 0–5 scheme also runs in Wales and Northern Ireland, but displaying your rating is a legal requirement there — under the Food Hygiene Rating (Wales) Act 2013 and the Food Hygiene Rating Act (Northern Ireland) 2016 — whereas in England display is voluntary. Scotland does not use the 0–5 scheme at all: it runs the Food Hygiene Information Scheme, which gives a result of “Pass” or “Improvement Required”.
Fees, timescales and how a request is handled can also differ between local authorities, so check the published position of the council that inspects you before acting on anything here.
Queries
EHO inspections — common questions
Sources
Where these facts come from
Everything stated as a rule on this page is taken from published guidance or legislation. Anything I have described as “usually” or “in my experience” is judgement, not law.
- Food Standards Agency — Food Hygiene Rating Scheme: guidance for businesses (GOV.UK)
- Food Safety and Hygiene (England) Regulations 2013, regulation 16 — powers of entry (legislation.gov.uk)
- Food Safety Act 1990, section 33 — obstruction etc. of officers (legislation.gov.uk)
- Regulation (EC) No 852/2004, Article 5 — procedures based on HACCP principles (legislation.gov.uk)
Next step
EHO due? Let's get you ready before they arrive.
Tell me where you are — a booked-in EHO visit, a rating you need to fix, or allergens you are not confident in. No obligation, no jargon.