During an inspection, the EHO scores your business on three separate areas. Each area is weighted differently, and the overall FHRS rating is determined by the lowest scoring area — so one weak area can pull your entire rating down.

Area 1: Hygienic food handling

Weight: Highest

This covers how food is handled throughout your operation:

• Cooking, re-heating, cooling, and holding temperatures
• Cross-contamination prevention (raw vs cooked, colour-coded chopping boards)
• Personal hygiene of staff (handwashing, clean uniforms, no jewellery)
• Date marking and stock rotation (FIFO)
• Allergen management

How Spotless Score helps

• Food temperature checks — Set up food-type checks for cooking, hot-holding, and cooling temps. Each check records per-item readings with safe-range indicators. See Managing Food Items.
• Cold store temperature checks — Twice-daily fridge, freezer, and cold-room temperature logs. See Managing Fridges.
• Visual checks — Handwash stations, stock rotation, and allergen checks all available as daily hygiene checks.

Area 2: Cleanliness and condition of premises

Weight: Medium

This covers the physical environment of your business:

• Cleanliness of kitchen surfaces, floors, walls, ceilings
• Lighting and ventilation
• Pest control measures (proofing, traps, activity logs)
• Waste management (bins, waste storage area)
• Equipment condition and maintenance

How Spotless Score helps

• Deep clean schedules — Weekly deep clean checks ensure ovens, extraction hoods, and walk-ins are cleaned regularly.
• Pest control checks — Weekly pest indicator checks track visual inspections and log reviews.
• Kitchen visual checks — Twice-daily checks for clean surfaces and cross-contamination risks.
• Equipment checks — Weekly checks for faults, servicing logs, and PAT testing.

Area 3: Food safety management

Weight: Medium to High

This covers your food safety management system — what the EHO calls "confidence in management":

• HACCP or Safer Food Better Business (SFBB) documentation
• Due diligence records (temperature logs, cleaning schedules)
• Staff food safety training (certificates, refresher training)
• Supplier approval and delivery checks
• Management review and internal audits

How Spotless Score helps

• Digital record keeping — Every check completion creates a permanent, time-stamped record that cannot be tampered with. See Record Keeping.
• Automated audit trail — Spotless Score uses "replace" (not edit) for check changes and soft-deletes for deletions, preserving a full history.
• Check scheduling — The system automatically generates occurrences based on frequency (twice-daily through quarterly). See Managing Checks and Check Occurrences.
• Role-based access — Owner, manager, and staff roles control who can complete, skip, or modify records.

How the three areas combine

The EHO assigns scores to each of the three areas. The overall FHRS rating is calculated from the combination. A business can score 5 in one area and still lose stars if another area is weak — particularly Area 1 (hygienic food handling) which has the highest weight.

See Achieving a 5-Star Rating for a practical roadmap to improving your scores across all three areas.