Simone Rotella
Until a few weeks ago, I relied on restaurant hygiene ratings when deciding where to have dinner. The score – given by the UK’s Food Standards Agency – ranges from 0 to 5, where 0 indicates urgent improvement is required. It is traditionally a good predictor if you are fastidious – or if you just want to avoid nasty parasites like Giardia.
Yet in October, the BBC revealed some businesses misrepresent their hygiene scores, posting a 5 when their ratings are as low as 0. The signal of hygiene I relied on wasn’t always reliable.
This was just one incident that had…
