How we monitor food safety

We work with food businesses across Adur and Worthing to monitor food safety, ensuring that the storage, preparation, manufacture and sale of food for the public is free from the risk of food poisoning and meets all food safety requirements.

To support this, we do the following:

inspect food businesses
investigate complaints regarding food and food premises
take food samples for analysis
advise businesses on good food hygiene practices

Routine food hygiene inspections

Businesses are inspected on a regular basis. We carry out over 600 full food hygiene inspections a year across Adur and Worthing, as well as follow-up visits to premises that do not meet the required standards.

Inspections are largely unannounced and the frequency of inspection is determined by the risk to food safety the business activity poses.

Criteria for assessing the risk is set out in a Food Standards Agency (FSA) Code of Practice, but factors that determine the risk rating include:

the type of food manufactured or sold
the scale of distribution
the vulnerability of the consumer
conditions found on the premises
confidence in the management to provide a safe place to eat

For more information about how the food hygiene rating scheme works, please see:

How we rate a food business' hygiene

Revisits to check for compliance

During a food hygiene inspection the Food Business Operator will be advised of any contraventions found or any recommendations to improve food safety. They will be given a chance to put things right and a timescale in which to do it.

Investigation of complaints

We will investigate if we receive complaints of foreign bodies found in food or of dirty, un-hygienic premises. We will also investigate complaints of food sold beyond its use-by date.

Food sampling and analysis

Sampling can show evidence of contamination and the bacteria which can cause food poisoning. We regularly take samples of foodstuffs from premises. It may be as part of our routine local sampling programme or a national initiative, or in the course of investigating a complaint or food poisoning outbreak.