Food Hygiene Rating Scheme online display guidance

Guiding principles

Food is sold online in many different ways and across different platforms. This means that one size and format of display may not be relevant for all businesses. 

When deciding how to display your food hygiene rating online, make sure the placement satisfies all of the guiding principles. This means your rating should: 

• appear prominently on your website so that it is readily seen when your customer accesses a page.  
• be adequately sized so that it is easily read by your customer. You should avoid reducing the image size or resolution to a point where the rating becomes hard to read or is pixelated. 
• appear anywhere prior to the point where your customer selects food or places an order. You should consider the different ways a customer may access your website and make sure that the rating appears prominently, even if they do not access your homepage. 

As a general guide, if the user can select food or place an order without the food hygiene rating being in their field of vision then the placement of that food hygiene rating would not be ‘readily seen'.

Website display 

Many food businesses receive orders directly through their website. You can display your rating in your website header, on the food menu or anywhere prior to selecting food or placing an order. The placement of your online rating must satisfy the guiding principles:  

• Can your customers readily see your business’s rating? 
• Can your customers easily read your business’s rating? 
• Is your rating visible prior to the point where customers can select food or place an order, whichever comes first in the user’s journey?

Download your rating 

A range of food hygiene rating images have been designed with different sizes and formats so that you can adapt to suit your business’ online display requirements. The ratings images are available to download in English and in a bilingual Welsh format for businesses in Wales.  

If you have registered your food business, but have not yet received a rating, you can display the online rating ‘awaiting inspection’ for businesses in England and NI or ‘rating awaited’ for businesses based in Wales. Images have been provided for all ratings including from 0 - urgent improvement necessary to 5 - very good. 

Get code for your rating

If you are displaying your rating on your website, you can embed the javascript code for the relevant rating as opposed to downloading the image file and storing it locally. 

This is because the javascript code is developed to update automatically if your rating changes. It is therefore a one-off implementation. 

If you choose to download the image file directly, you should ensure that you make the relevant changes to the rating across your digital platforms, if your rating changes.

Third-party websites 

For businesses that receive orders via a third-party aggregator platform or website, your rating may be displayed on their platform already. 

If your rating is not correctly displayed, you should contact the aggregator platform to update this. 

Third-party website operators and developers should review the FHRS Application Programming Interface for more specific advice on how to ensure their platforms meet FHRS display requirements.

Social media display 

Many food businesses use social media to promote their products and take online orders. 

When applying the guiding principles of readily seen, easily read prior to the point of order, you should treat your social media business pages as the main point of sale for your customer.  

As with a physical premises, you should display your rating across all social media channels you have a presence on, including where orders can be placed via messaging service. 

There are many different options for online display across social media. Below we provide recommendations for how you can be compliant across different social media platforms. 

Facebook 

Some businesses may take orders by direct message on Facebook or through Facebook Marketplace. 

When selling food through Facebook, you should ensure: 

• a permanent, fixed display of your rating on your profile that can be seen by a customer when they visit your page. 
• adequate sizing of the rating so that it can be easily read and is not significantly reduced in size when accessing via a mobile device. 

This can be achieved through displaying your rating as part of your Facebook profile’s cover image, as a pinned Facebook post or in the Facebook Marketplace listing. 

Below images for illustrative purposes only.

Facebook cover image 

You can prominently display your rating by embedding the relevant rating image in your profile cover image. This should be added to the right hand side of the cover image so that it does not conflict with your profile image. 

The rating can be easily embedded on your cover image by using free online image editing tools such as PIXLR or Canva.

Pinned Facebook post 

You can upload your rating as an individual post as long as it is pinned to your profile so that it appears prominently at the top of your page. 

Failure to pin the post will mean that future posts will send the rating further down your page feed and make it difficult for customers to find your rating. This would not meet the FHRS display guiding principles. 

By adding a pinned post you can provide a permanent place for your rating on your profile and provide any additional context in the accompanying text. 

Facebook Marketplace 

Some food businesses and individual users sell food directly through Facebook Marketplace. 

To display a rating on Facebook Marketplace, you should include your rating image in each listing post and accompanying text. 

This can be done by adding the rating as an overlay to the first image in the listing, or by including an image of the full rating in the carousel. 

The rating image can be easily added to a listing image using free online image editing tools such as PIXLR or Canva. 

Instagram

On Instagram, there should be a prominent fixed display of your rating on your profile. 

Visual display can be supported by including a written description of your FHRS rating in your account biography, but text should not be seen as an alternative to using an image of your rating.

Like Facebook, you can also pin a post to the top of your Instagram profile.

If you don't pin the post, any future posts will push your rating further down your page feed. This would make it difficult for customers to find your rating and would not meet the FHRS display guiding principles. 

By adding a pinned post, you can provide a permanent place for your rating on your Instagram profile.

Twitter/X

When applying the guiding principles to your business’s Twitter/X profile page, there should be: 

• A permanent, fixed display of your rating on your profile. 
• Adequate sizing of the rating so that it can be easily read and is not significantly reduced in size when accessing via a mobile device. 
• This can be achieved through displaying your rating as part of your profile’s header image or as a pinned post. 

Twitter/X header image

You can prominently display your rating by embedding it in your profile header photo. This should be added to the right-hand side of the header photo so that it does not conflict with your profile photo. 

Choosing suitable photos to embed the rating in can enhance your promotional activity and make it clear for customers when they access your page. 

The rating image can be easily added using free online image editing tools such as PIXLR or Canva. 

Pinned post

You can add your rating as an individual post, but this should be pinned to your profile so that it appears prominently at the top of your page. 

Failure to pin the post will mean that future posts will send the rating further down your feed and make it difficult for customers to find your rating. This would not meet the FHRS display guiding principles. 

By adding a pinned post you can provide a permanent place for your rating on your profile and provide any additional context in the accompanying text.