Skip to main content
English Cymraeg
Food Hygiene Rating Scheme Audit of Display and Business Survey 2021: Technical report

FHRS Audit 2021 Technical report: Weighting

Information on how the data collected from the fieldwork and audit was weighted to make it representative of the population.

Last updated: 12 September 2023
Last updated: 12 September 2023

In line with standard market research practice, the data collected from the audit and telephone survey of food businesses was weighted to make it representative of the underlying population. Weighting the data was necessary because of the deliberate decision to stratify interviews to ensure sufficient base sizes were achieved by country and FHRS rating.

Weights were applied to the data to make it representative of the target population within each country. The weights were informed by the profile of the underlying population of businesses in terms of sector and FHRS. Data on the underlying population was sourced from FSA’s FHRS database and IDBR and is presented in Tables 5.1.

Table 5.1 : Profile of the underlaying business population by sector and FHRS rating within country

Sector

Sector England Northern Ireland Wales
Accommodation and pubs/bars/nightclubs 18.82% 16.37% 23.95%
Restaurants/cafes/canteens and other catering 38.91% 39.71% 36.91%
Retail 26.41% 27.75% 25.67%
Takeaways/sandwich shops 15.85%

16.17%

13.48%

FHRS rating

FHRS rating England Northern Ireland Wales
0 to1 2.06% 0.38% 2.04%
2 2.08% 0.64% 1.78%
3 8.76% 4.48% 9.45%
4 18.42%

17.18%

21.93%
5 68.68% 77.32% 64.81%