Food hygiene in Birmingham: registration, inspections and ratings.

1. Register with Birmingham City Council

Every food business in Birmingham must register with the council at least 28 days before it starts trading. This includes businesses run from home, market stalls, food vans and online food sellers. Registration is free and you do it online on GOV.UK. You must also keep your details up to date, for example if you change owner or start a new type of food.

• Register a food business in Birmingham (GOV.UK)
• Birmingham City Council: starting and setting up a food business
• Birmingham City Council food team: 0121 303 6007

Selling street food? You also need street trading consent from the council. Birmingham City Council says only businesses with a food hygiene rating of 4 or 5 are considered for it.

2. How a hygiene inspection works

Birmingham City Council's Environmental Health officers inspect food businesses. Visits are usually unannounced. How often you are inspected depends on risk: from every six months for the highest-risk businesses to every two years for lower-risk ones. A new business is usually inspected soon after it registers.

Your rating is based on three things the officer checks:

1. How hygienically food is handled: preparation, cooking, cooling, reheating and storage.
2. The condition of the premises: cleanliness, layout, lighting, ventilation and pest control.
3. How you manage food safety: your system, such as Safer Food, Better Business, staff training, and the records that show checks are really done.

The third point is where many businesses lose marks: the checks were done, but nothing was written down.

3. Birmingham's food hygiene ratings today

Of the 10,291 Birmingham food businesses on the ratings website, 8,600 have a rating. Another 1,471 are waiting for their first inspection, and 220 are exempt (for example, very low-risk businesses).

Source: Food Standards Agency food hygiene rating data for Birmingham City Council, published 16 October 2026. Shares are rounded to the nearest whole number.

So about 1 in 10 rated businesses in Birmingham has a rating of 0, 1 or 2, and 4 in 5 have a 4 or 5.

4. The records an inspector usually asks to see

Inspectors want to see that your food safety checks happen every day, not just on the day they visit. Typical records include:

• Fridge and freezer temperatures, with what you did when a reading was wrong
• Cooking, cooling and reheating checks
• A cleaning schedule showing what was cleaned and by whom
• Opening and closing checks
• Delivery checks
• Staff training records
• Allergen information for the 14 allergens

Prefer paper? Our free printable templates and free temperature log cover the basics. See also what records an inspector might want to see.

5. After the inspection

• Appeal: if you think your rating is wrong, you have 21 days from being told your rating to appeal to the council.
• Right to reply: you can publish a short response next to your rating at any time before your next inspection.
• Re-rating visit: once you have made the improvements, you can ask for a new visit using the revisit request form on Birmingham City Council's food hygiene rating scheme page, which also has the appeal and right-to-reply forms. Birmingham charges a fee for this; check the current amount with the council's food team. The visit is unannounced and your rating can go up, down or stay the same.

Sources: Food Standards Agency guidance for businesses and Birmingham City Council food hygiene ratings, checked 16 October 2026.

Keeping records on your phone

Food Hygiene Record Book keeps these daily records on iPhone and Android, works offline, and makes a PDF report when an inspector asks. Every new business gets a 30-day free trial with no card. See the plans.

Food Hygiene Record Book is independent. It is not linked to Birmingham City Council or the Food Standards Agency, and no app can guarantee an inspection result.