Stevenage food hygiene: 14 of last 15 scored top marks

Every food hygiene inspection published for Stevenage since the start of July has come back clean. Fifteen ratings have appeared on the national register in that time. Fourteen of them are a 5, the top score. The fifteenth is a 4.

That includes the cafe at the Gordon Craig Theatre, rated on 26 August, and Poplars Fish Bar on Magpie Crescent, rated the day before.

The borough’s register looks good in the round, too. Of the 519 Stevenage premises that currently hold a score, 458 are rated 5, or 88%. Next door in North Hertfordshire the same figure is 78%.

There is a catch, and it is a big one. 156 of the borough’s 693 registered food businesses have no rating at all.

Every rating published since 1 July

A 5 means hygiene standards are “very good”. A 4 means they are “good”. Both are pass marks that most people would be happy to see in a window.

One caveat on the count. Ratings reach the national register roughly a fortnight after the visit, so the August total will grow as more are published. In the first half of 2026 the borough averaged about 15 published inspections a month, and July and August currently show seven and eight.

The shape of the whole register

Nine premises in the whole borough hold a score of 2 or below. That is a smaller share than in most places, and it is worth saying so plainly, because these registers usually reach the news only when something fails.

Nearly a quarter of the borough’s food businesses have no rating

Now the part that does not look good. Of the 693 premises on the Stevenage register, 156 are listed as awaiting inspection. No rating has been published for any of them. That is 22.5% of the borough’s food businesses.

North Hertfordshire’s register, run by the neighbouring council, covers 1,129 premises. Only 66 of them, 5.8%, are awaiting inspection. Stevenage’s share is close to four times as high.

The 156 are not obscure operations. By type they are:

• 64 takeaways and sandwich shops
• 29 other catering premises
• 24 retailers
• 19 restaurants, cafes and canteens
• 8 schools, colleges and universities
• 7 pubs, bars and nightclubs
• 3 caring premises
• 1 supermarket, 1 distributor

Stevenage Borough Council’s own guidance to businesses is clear about what should happen. “After you start trading, a Food Officer will carry out a food inspection which will give you your first Food Hygiene Rating Scheme score,” it says, adding that inspections are unannounced unless the business is run from home. It also says a “poorly managed high risk business will be inspected at least every six months”, while a safer low risk business is visited less often.

The register also carries a long tail of old scores. 48 Stevenage ratings were given before 2020, and 218 date from 2024 or earlier. The oldest still standing on the register was given in March 2004, to a theatre bar.

Every figure above comes from the Food Standards Agency’s own register and the council’s own pages. We could find no published target or backlog figure for food inspections on the council’s website.

The bottom of the register

Nine Stevenage premises currently hold a rating of 2 or below. The register records:

A rating is a snapshot of one visit on one day. A business can appeal within 21 days, and the council says it responds within 21 days, with the rating not displayed while that runs. Any business can also add a “right to reply” to its entry on the register, with no deadline, and can ask for a re-inspection at any time. A re-inspection is unannounced, takes place within three months of the request, requires photographic evidence of improvements, is charged for, and can push a rating down as well as up.

What it means for you

The scores are not about the food. Officers assess three things: how hygienically food is handled, the physical condition of the premises, and how well the business manages food safety through its processes, training and systems.

The scale runs:

• 5 hygiene standards are very good
• 4 hygiene standards are good
• 3 hygiene standards are generally satisfactory
• 2 some improvement is necessary
• 1 major improvement is necessary
• 0 urgent improvement is required

Displaying the sticker is voluntary in England, so a business with a poor score is under no obligation to show it. Every rating is free to look up at ratings.food.gov.uk. If you have a concern about a food business in Stevenage, the council takes reports through its food inspections page, and Environmental Health can be reached at env.health@stevenage.gov.uk.

And if a place you use has no rating, that on its own tells you nothing about it. It means the register has nothing to tell you yet.

Sources

• Food Standards Agency food hygiene ratings register, all figures retrieved from the FSA’s open data for the Stevenage Borough Council and North Hertfordshire District Council areas on 1 September 2026.
• Stevenage Borough Council, Food Inspections, page dated 29 June 2026, for when inspections happen and how often.
• Stevenage Borough Council, Food Hygiene Rating, page dated 14 July 2026, for what each score means, the three areas assessed, the appeal process, re-inspections and the right to reply.
• Food Standards Agency, Food Hygiene Rating Scheme guidance for businesses for the national definitions of each rating and the 21 day appeal window.