The Food Hygiene Information Scheme (FHIS) in Scotland, explained for food businesses

If you've moved a business from England to Scotland, or you run sites on both sides of the border, the first thing you notice is that there's no green 5 sticker in Scottish windows. Scotland runs its own scheme, the Food Hygiene Information Scheme (FHIS), and it works differently.

This guide explains what the FHIS results mean, how inspections feed into them, how the scheme differs from the Food Hygiene Rating Scheme used elsewhere in the UK, and what to do if you're unhappy with your result.

What the FHIS is

The FHIS is a partnership between Scotland's local authorities and Food Standards Scotland (FSS). FSS says it covers more than 54,000 food businesses that supply food to consumers in Scotland: restaurants, pubs, cafés, hotels, takeaways, shops and more.

When a council food safety officer inspects your premises, they check that you comply with food hygiene law and that the food is safe to eat, looking at the conditions they find and the food safety management procedures you have in place. The outcome is then published on the FSS website.

The FHIS results

A Pass is not a grade of how good you are. It means you broadly met the law on the day. That's the main reason some operators and consumers argue for a more detailed scale, and why FSS also runs the separate Eat Safe award for businesses that go further (more on that below).

Change of owner

FSS is clear that a result belongs to a specific business at a specific address. If you take over an existing restaurant or pub, the previous owner's Pass doesn't carry over. You'll be shown as Awaiting Inspection until the council inspects you.

How FHIS differs from the Food Hygiene Rating Scheme

England, Wales and Northern Ireland use the Food Hygiene Rating Scheme (FHRS), run by the Food Standards Agency and councils.

If you run sites in Wales or Northern Ireland, display there is a legal duty with fixed penalties. See our guide to food hygiene rating display law in Wales and Northern Ireland.

Do you have to display your FHIS result?

As of October 2026, we found no legal requirement in Scotland. FSS's business guidance says you'll be given a certificate and/or sticker to display on your door or window, and its consumer guidance notes that some businesses choose not to display their rating. Every result is published on the FSS website regardless, so customers can look you up.

This may change. FSS consulted food businesses on a review of the FHIS in early 2023, and in 2026 a petition to the Scottish Parliament (PE2217) asked for an England-style scale and mandatory display. As of October 2026 the petition is under consideration and we found no decision. If you've got a Pass, displaying it costs nothing and tells customers what they'd otherwise have to look up.

If you get Improvement Required

Don't panic, and don't ignore it. Read the inspection report or letter carefully: it will say what needs to change. Then use the three safeguards FSS builds into the scheme.

1. Appeal (if you think the result is wrong)

• Appeal within 14 days of being notified. The 14 days include weekends and public holidays.
• Send your form, letter or email to your local authority's Lead Officer for Food.
• While the appeal is pending, your result shows online as "Awaiting publication".
• Miss the deadline and the result is published.

2. Right to reply (if you want to explain)

• Send written comments to the officer who inspected you, using the standard form, a letter or an email.
• There's no deadline: you can submit one any time up to your next inspection.
• The council can edit offensive, defamatory, clearly inaccurate or irrelevant remarks. Otherwise your comments are published alongside your result until you get a new one.

A good right to reply is short, factual and positive: "Since our inspection we have replaced the walk-in fridge seal, retrained all kitchen staff on cleaning schedules and introduced daily temperature checks."

3. Request a re-visit (once you've fixed it)

• Write to the food safety officer who inspected you, explaining what you've changed, with evidence such as receipts, photos or records.
• You can only ask after the improvements are made, and you can't choose when the re-visit happens.
• Only one follow-up visit is allowed between planned inspections.
• FSS says there's no charge at the moment, though that may change.
• You'll be told the outcome at the visit or within 14 days.

The evidence is what gets you a re-visit. "We've sorted it" won't. Two or three weeks of signed cleaning schedules, temperature records and a training log will.

What gets a Pass: the basics an officer looks for

FSS describes the inspection as checking compliance with food hygiene law, whether food is safe to eat, the conditions found and your management procedures. In practice, for a restaurant or pub, that means:

• A food safety management system based on HACCP principles. In Scotland, FSS's CookSafe guidance is the usual starting point for caterers. See our HACCP for small restaurants guide.
• Records that show it works: fridge and hot-hold temperatures, cooking and cooling checks, cleaning schedules, delivery checks, staff training.
• A clean, well-maintained kitchen: surfaces, equipment, handwashing facilities, pest control.
• Allergen information that's accurate and up to date.
• Staff who know the system and can explain what they do.

Our guide on how to prepare for an EHO inspection has a full checklist that works on both sides of the border.

The Eat Safe award

Eat Safe sits alongside FHIS. Where FHIS tells customers you meet the legal minimum, Eat Safe recognises businesses that go above and beyond on food hygiene.

• Who can get it: any business in Scotland that sells food directly to customers.
• How it's assessed: by your council during planned food hygiene inspections. There's no separate application.
• What the officer looks at: compliance with food law, risks to customers' health, how well your food safety procedures (such as HACCP) control those risks, and whether staff are trained to the award's standards.
• Cost: free.
• How long it lasts: while you keep meeting the standard. It can be withdrawn if standards drop, and it doesn't transfer to a new owner or a new address.

For a Scottish restaurant or pub, Eat Safe is the closest thing to a "5" you can put in the window.

How ShiftComplete helps Scottish venues

ShiftComplete is an operations and rota app for UK pubs, restaurants, cafés, bars and hotels. It helps you keep the records an EHO asks to see, wherever you are in the UK. It isn't approved or endorsed by FSS or any council, and you remain responsible for food safety.

• Temperature logs for every fridge, freezer and hot-hold unit, each with its own range. Out-of-range readings are flagged on the dashboard, every entry is named and timestamped, and there's a 7-day rolling view to show an officer.
• Opening, closing and cleaning checklists that change by weekday, with optional photo evidence.
• Allergens mapped to the 14 UK allergens, searchable by front-of-house staff.
• Incidents and maintenance logged with photos, severity and status: useful evidence for a re-visit request.
• Risk assessments kept and printed in the app, plus a full audit log with CSV export.

The rota is in the same app, so the person on the opening checks is the person on the rota. £1.49 per staff member per month, free for 60 days with no card.