Hall & Woodhouse has been awarded a Food Hygiene Rating of five by the local authorities at every pub in its managed estate across the south.

The 52 pubs make up Hall & Woodhouse’s manged house estate stretching from Bristol to Exeter, and London to Brighton. In Dorset, Hall & Woodhouse has 14 managed houses including The Crown Hotel in Blandford, The Grasshopper in Poole and The Olive Branch in Wimborne.

The Food Hygiene Rating Scheme is facilitated by the Food Standards Agency in partnership with local Councils to provide strict guidelines on the hygiene standards of businesses that sell food such as cafes, restaurants and pubs. The scheme also allows guests to be educated on a business’ hygiene standards and therefore make more informed decisions about where they wish to dine.

All 52 of Hall & Woodhouse’s managed houses were assessed on the handling of food, how food is stored and prepared, the cleanliness of facilities and how food safety is managed during the inspections. As all the pubs have received a rating of five, which is top of the scale, it means the hygiene standards are very good and fully comply with the law. The Environmental Health Officers that carried out the inspections commended the pubs for the kitchen management diary system. This was developed with Shield Safety Group and plays a crucial role in how the pubs’ management teams and chefs manage their kitchen standards.

Ryan Cobb, Group Safety Manager of Hall & Woodhouse, explained: “We are extremely proud of our General Managers and kitchen teams who have been dedicated to the ‘Drive for Five’ and achieving this ambitious goal of reaching five Food Hygiene Ratings across the board. Integrity is a key value to us at Hall & Woodhouse and we have now been recognised for our commitment to imbedding a high level of food hygiene standards. Our approach has focused on making safety simple and nurturing a positive food safety culture to empower our teams to incorporate the highest standards of food safety and hygiene practices into their roles daily, it’s what our guests expect.”