Food hygiene ratings

The Food Hygiene Rating Scheme public website has seen high levels of traffic since February, peaking around the start of the COVID lockdown. As a result the FSA introduced traffic throttling on 19th March in order to reduce the risk of service outages that affect all users. The throttling rate is variable, being dependent on the currently operational environment, but likely to be significantly higher than 1/s. If you are sending requests at volume and seeing Http 403 errors, this is the likely cause.

As a trial, the FSA is making the Open Data Files available in JSON format.

To download files in JSON format, simply replace the .xml file extension in Urls with .json. For example, for the Babergh Local Authority:

https://ratings.food.gov.uk/OpenDataFiles/FHRS297en-GB.xml
...becomes...
https://ratings.food.gov.uk/OpenDataFiles/FHRS297en-GB.json

The establishmentIDs and FHRSIDs for establishments uploaded by High Peak (local authority code 067), Staffordshire Moorlands (local authority code 293) and South Staffordshire (local authority code 291) will change, this is due to the councils changing databases and being unable to use the same establishmentIDs.

High Peak, Staffordshire Moorlands and South Staffordshire plan to upload the new establishmentIDs which generates the FHRSIDs on 15th June 2020.

The establishmentIDs and FHRSIDs for establishments uploaded by Cannock Chase District Council (local authority code 287) will change, this is due to the council changing database and being unable to use the same establishmentIDs.

Cannock Chase District Council plan to upload the new establishmentIDs, which generate the FHRSIDs, on 1st June 2020.

The establishmentIDs and FHRSIDs for establishments uploaded by East Staffordshire Borough Council (local authority code 288) and Lichfield District Council (local authority code 289) will change, this is due to the council changing database and being unable to use the same establishmentIDs.

East Staffordshire and Litchfield plan to upload the new establishmentIDs, which generate the FHRSIDs, on 5th May 2020.

On 1st April 2020 the following local authority merger took place. This is represented in the Food Hygiene Rating Scheme open data as follows:

• Aylesbury Vale (local authority code 021)
• Chiltern (local authority code 022)
• South Buckinghamshire (local authority code 024) and
• Wycombe (local authority code 025)

...merged to become Buckinghamshire (local authority code 021).

Once the local authorities have merged their databases they will upload a single file, and establishments which were uploaded to the old accounts will change their FHRSID number.

All local authorities operating the Food Hygiene Rating Scheme and Food Hygiene Information Scheme can be found at https://ratings.food.gov.uk/authorities/xml This file will also be amended when the changes have been implemented.