Reading Food Hygiene: Five Rated Zero, 854 Rated Five

Five food businesses in Reading currently hold a hygiene rating of zero, the lowest the national scheme can give. Four of the five are convenience shops rather than places to eat, and two of the zeros were issued in July.

That comes from the Food Standards Agency’s live register for Reading Borough Council, checked this morning. The same register is the reason for the more cheerful half of this story: of the 1,337 Reading businesses that carry a numerical rating, 854 hold a five, which is 63.9 per cent.

The five rated zero

Each entry gives the business name, address, type and the date the rating was issued, exactly as the register records them. None of the five has a new rating pending.

A zero does not mean a business is closed. It means, in the scheme’s own words, that urgent improvement is necessary, and the rating stands until the business asks for and passes a re-rating visit.

One of the five is already familiar. Kings Food and Wine on Kings Road is the shop whose premises licence the council’s own licensing team applied to review last month, on the grounds that the operation was “undermining the licensing objectives”. We reported the application when the consultation window opened: the Kings Food and Wine licence review. Representations closed on 3 September. The review has not yet appeared on a Licensing Applications Sub-Committee agenda; the committee’s meeting list shows sittings on 10, 17 and 22 September, and the 10 September agenda carries only a licence application for The Biryani Lounge on Wokingham Road.

The licence review and the hygiene rating are separate processes run under different laws. Neither decides the other.

The whole picture

Reading’s register holds 1,502 premises in total. Alongside the 1,337 with a rating, 101 are awaiting their first inspection and 64 are exempt. Exempt means low-risk premises that are still inspected but not rated: the FSA gives the examples of “newsagents, chemist shops or visitor centres selling pre-wrapped goods that do not require refrigeration”, plus childminders and home care services.

Below the top rating, the numbers thin out fast: 248 at four, 144 at three, 40 at two, 46 at one, five at zero. Put another way, 235 Reading premises, roughly one in six of those rated, sit at three or below.

The register also lags. The most recent rating published for Reading was issued on 18 August, so an inspection carried out in the past fortnight will not show up yet.

What inspectors have been finding lately

Since 1 June, 132 Reading premises have been given a new rating. Seventy of them scored five. The recent five-star list includes the McDonald’s at The Oracle, Starbucks on King Street, Parthian Climbing on Britten Road, Morrisons Daily at Coronation Square, the Domino’s on School Road in Tilehurst and Station Spuds and Grill at Reading station.

Eleven were rated one over the same period. The four most recent:

• Big Bazaar, 221 Shinfield Road, RG2 8HA, rated 21 July
• The Queens Head, 54 Christchurch Road, RG2 7AZ, rated 21 July
• GPR Food & Wine, 513 Oxford Road, RG30 1HF, rated 7 July
• Shirdi Saibaba Temple & Community, 44 West Street, RG1 1TZ, rated 2 July

A rating of one means major improvement is necessary. As with a zero, it is a snapshot of one inspection on one day, not a permanent verdict.

What a business can do about a rating

The rules here are national, and they cut both ways. From the FSA’s guidance for businesses:

• Appeal. “You must make your appeal in writing within 21 days of being notified about your food hygiene rating.” The council must reply within 21 days of receiving it.
• Right to reply. A business can publish a statement alongside its rating explaining what has changed or what was unusual on the day. There is no deadline for this, and it appears on the FSA website next to the score.
• Re-rating visit. Once the improvements are made, a business can ask to be re-inspected. In England, where no charge applies, that visit does not usually happen in the first three months but is expected within six.

Some English councils charge for a re-rating visit and some do not. We could not confirm Reading’s position today: the council’s own food safety pages are served by a JavaScript application that does not return readable text to our tools, and we have not carried the claim rather than guess at it.

What it means for you

• Look up any Reading business yourself at ratings.food.gov.uk. The register is free and covers takeaways, shops, schools, care homes and mobile caterers, not just restaurants.
• Display is not compulsory in England. The FSA’s guidance says businesses in England “do not have to display their rating at their premises but are encouraged to do so”. It is compulsory in Wales and Northern Ireland. That is exactly why the online register is worth checking.
• To report a hygiene concern about a Reading premises, contact the council’s environmental health team through reading.gov.uk. Complaints are what trigger many unannounced visits.
• A rating covers hygiene standards found at inspection. It is not a judgement on the food, the prices or the service.

Elsewhere on the council’s records: current premises licence applications, planning applications in Reading and bin collection days.

Sources

• Food Standards Agency food hygiene rating register, Reading Borough Council area (local authority 291), read 8 September 2026, for every business, rating, address and rating date above, and for the totals.
• Food Hygiene Rating Scheme: guidance for businesses for the appeal window, right to reply and re-rating visit.
• Food Hygiene Rating Scheme for what the ratings 0 to 5 mean and the three areas inspected.
• Reading Licensing Applications Sub-Committee meetings for the September sitting dates and the 10 September agenda.