Wiltshire Hungry Horse appeals after getting food hygiene rating of one

According to the Food Standards Agency, the Hungry Horse pubs, The Rowden Arms in Chippenham, scored just one star on its latest hygiene inspection.

A spokesperson for the pub told the Gazette and Herald that the rating has been appealed and “will be going up to four" after an error was made.

The initial results from the inspection are still on the FSA website, detailing some of the report and areas in need of improvement.

Currently, one of the areas inspected is the management of food safety which assesses issues such as checks in place to ensure that food sold or served is safe to eat, evidence that staff know about food safety, and the food safety officer has confidence that standards will be maintained in future.

This has been described as needing ‘major improvement.’

The cleanliness and condition of facilities and building, meaning whether it has things like appropriate layout, good ventilation and handwashing facilities, as well as pest control to enable good food hygiene at the pub is also assessed.

At the inspection on March 26, it was also assessed as needing ‘major improvement.’

However, the hygienic handling of food including preparation, cooking, re-heating, cooling and storage is currently described as being ‘very good' at the pub on the FSA report.

A spokesperson for the Rowden Arms said: “Wiltshire Council recently awarded our pub a 1* food hygiene rating, which we disagreed with strongly as we operate to an extremely high standard of food safety.

"We appealed this rating immediately and the council has accepted it was inaccurate and amended it to 4*.

"We’re extremely disappointed that the original 1* rating was still published as it does not reflect our high standards and we are asking the council to update this to the correct rating of 4* as soon as possible.”

NOTE: Since this story was published the restaurant appealed the verdict and the council has given them a new rating