EAST Ayrshire has taken second place in the whole of Scotland in a table ranking the country’s best areas for food hygiene standards.

With a 99.61 per cent pass rate across 518 premises, South Ayrshire tops the rankings for Scotland’s 32 local authority areas – with East Ayrshire following close behind with a 99.03 per cent pass rate for 413 premises.

The report analysed Food Standards Agency (FSA) data for more than 230,000 food businesses across England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales.

It found that in Scotland, the average pass rating across all food establishments was 91.8 per cent from more than 20,000 premises – up from 89.5 per cent in 2019.

Hailing the area’s srong performance in the rankings, an East Ayrshire Council spokesperson said: “East Ayrshire Council’s environmental health is responsible for undertaking food law inspections across a full range of commercial premises, including farms, factories, supermarkets, restaurants/takeaways, small retail shops and burger vans.

“The inspections are undertaken by fully qualified environmental health and food safety officers and are unannounced in accordance with the food law code of practice.

“Thanks to a strong partnership between environmental health and local food businesses, the pass rate remains high.

“We implement the food law rating system and conduct intensive interventions where required to ensure that visitors and our local communities have a great choice of eating places to enjoy and can easily make an informed decision based on the hygiene rating issued by our environmental health and food safety officers.

“The status of any registered business can be checked online.”

Eilidh Paton, owner of Alba Food Safety Consultancy and a chartered environmental health officer, said: “Food Hygiene inspections and ratings are extremely important.

“From a legal perspective, they ensure businesses are compliant, but mostly, they are designed to help businesses provide safer food.

“Customers should be aware of food hygiene ratings. They should be easier to access but I believe this could only be achieved by making it mandatory for businesses to display their ratings.”

Find out more at foodstan dards.gov.scot.