New Food Hygiene Inspection Rules Introduced in Wales – What Every Food Business Needs to Know [Updated October 2025].
Back in 2023, the new Food Law Code of Practice came into force in England (see The FSA Food Law Code of Practice: Explained). At the time, those of us in Wales were left waiting to see how—and when—similar changes might be introduced here. Evaluation of a new standards food delivery model took place in Wales between September 2023 and February 2024. Finally, news has landed.
A significant shift is currently underway in the way food hygiene inspections will be carried out in Wales—one that most business owners are unlikely to have heard about. If you’re a food business owner or manager, read on to find out exactly what’s changed, why it’s happening, and what you need to do to stay ahead.
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Food Hygiene Inspections: What's Changed in Wales?
As of October 2025, the Food Law Code of Practice (Wales) brings in several significant changes:
Councils can now send out Food Safety Officers—not just EHOs—to inspect and rate lower-risk food premises.
High-risk, complex, or problem businesses will still be inspected by fully qualified EHOs.
Many routine inspections for cafés, retailers, takeaways, care homes and similar businesses may now be carried out by someone who isn’t an EHO, but has received in-house training and passed a local competency assessment.
As New Food Magazine reported, the key changes of this modernisation agenda:
“….include a more flexible approach to prioritising checks on new food businesses, with local councils able to triage operators when they first register. Councils will also be able to make greater use of alternative methods, such as remote assessments, to target resources more efficiently.
The updated Codes also broaden the range of professionals who can undertake certain official control activities in England and Wales, ensuring officers’ expertise is dedicated to where it can have the greatest impact.
So if your business is used to seeing an EHO on every visit, don’t be surprised if your next inspector is a new face with a different background.
Why Has a New Approach To Food Hygiene Inspections Been Introduced?
If you’re wondering why these changes have come in—and what they mean for your business—the answer is simple: money and resources. Local authorities are facing ongoing staff shortages and ever-tighter budgets. To keep the system running, the rules have changed so councils can do more with less.
In other words, these updates aren’t about raising standards—they’re about coping with limited people and limited funding.
🔹Councils have fewer EHOs than ever, and the only way to keep the wheels turning is to lower the bar for who can carry out inspections on the lower-risk businesses.
🔹EHOs are now reserved for the most complex risks. Everyone else gets triaged by food safety officers.
🔹Councils will also be able to make greater use of alternative methods. So if you get a hygiene inspection of 3 or higher, you may receive a remote assessment in the future or just a telephone call. This is to allow local authorities to target resources their limited resources more efficiently.
🔹The public aren’t told this, but it’s the reality behind the new ‘modernised’ agenda.
The Senedd Report 2024
Worryingly, the 2024 Senedd report reviewing the Food Law Code of Practice for Wales confirmed these changes were designed to help councils “recruit, train and deploy additional officers” and address resource pressures following Brexit and the pandemic. (Food Standards Agency 2024, The Senedd Report, paragraph 6.16, page 20).
The scale of the problem is highlighted by legal expert Zoe Betts of Pinsent Masons, who points to the latest FSA/FSS “Our Food 2024” report showing around 95,000 overdue food inspections across England, Wales, and Northern Ireland—including 871 high‑risk businesses—in just a six‑month period. As she warns, “To be effective, a regulator must be adequately resourced; otherwise the door is open to bad actors.” (Betts, Z, FSA Report raises red flags over Local Authority resourcing, Pinsent Masons, 2024).
Amended Food Hygiene Rating Scheme Scoring System
While the 2024 Senedd report stated there were no changes to the Food Hygiene Scoring System at that time, this is no longer the case. With the new Code of Practice released in October 2025, Wales has now adopted an updated scoring system, which brings it in line with changes in England and Northern Ireland.
- The new scoring system and decision matrix: Sets out revised criteria for rating food businesses, with a stronger emphasis on risk-based approaches and flexibility in inspection methods.
- It includes a standalone score to cover a new ‘allergen risk factor’ and new intervention frequencies.
This is an important shift, and it underlines why food businesses need to keep up-to-date—not just with the law, but with how inspectors are scoring and reporting compliance.
What This Means In Practice?
Under the old system, every business in the same category was treated the same, no matter how they were actually performing:
- Whether your business had a rating of 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5, your inspection frequency was set by your risk category—nothing changed unless your core business type or processes changed.
- This meant that businesses in say Category C would be inspected every 18 months. Yet those issued with a low rating (like a 1 or 2) would get the same frequency of inspection (up to 18 months) as a premises with a 5 rating.
Under the new system, premises in Category C (e.g. restaurants and takeaways) that are not meeting the minimum standard (3) of broadly compliant, and has a poor rating (2 or below), will be in the spotlight.
Low rating businesses will trigger an in-person inspection sooner and more often—no more slipping under the radar year after year. The focus will be on the local authority to improve your food hygiene score.
On the other hand, if you’re running a premises and maintaining good food hygiene standards you could go up to 5 years (6o months) without an in-person inspection—maybe just a phone call, a virtual inspection, an online survey, or paperwork check (See Figure 1 below from the Food Law Practice Guidance Wales Oct 2025).
Figure 1 - Flow Diagram From Food Law Practice Guidance Wales (Oct 2025)
The takeaway sector is likely to feel this the most:
Local authorities will focus their limited resources where the risk is highest and where standards of compliance aren’t improving. Good performers will see less of the inspector in person, whilst those struggling to improve will get more attention.
Is This Good for Food Safety? The Quiet Controversy
Not everyone is comfortable with these changes. In the food safety world, there’s real debate over whether letting non-EHO officers inspect lower-risk businesses is the right move.
Sandra Moore, food safety specialist, raises concerns about non-EHO inspections on LinkedIn, October 2025
Sandra asks “Would you knowingly have someone who isn’t medically qualified tend to your healthcare needs? So why are we accepting less in food safety?”
She raises a fair point. The public assumes that food inspectors have specialist expertise, just as we’d expect from a doctor or nurse.
But this is not just happening in food safety. I saw exactly the same trend during my time in the NHS whilst studying patient safety. During 2013, as doctor shortages bit, the NHS started training Advanced Nurse Practitioners to do work that used to be reserved for clinicians and GPs. The change was presented as “modernisation” and “flexibility,” but everyone working inside the system knew the real reason—there simply weren’t enough doctors. So the role boundaries shifted, and nurses took on more responsibility to keep services afloat.
Now, we’re seeing a similar change in food safety enforcement. It isn’t a step forward for standards—it’s a way to cope with staff shortages and budget cuts. Whether this keeps food safety on track remains to be seen. The risk is inconsistency, less experienced inspections, and a widening gap between what the public expects and what’s really happening behind the scenes.
In short:
This is more about survival, not progress. The food safety profession is adapting to fewer hands on deck, hoping nothing goes badly wrong before more resources arrive.
Conclusion: Stay Ahead of the Curve
Wales has now joined England and Northern Ireland in adopting a more risk-based, flexible approach to food hygiene inspections. The days of routine, in-person visits for every business are over. For some, this means less disruption—inspections may be less frequent than before. But for others, especially those with lower ratings or compliance issues, expect more scrutiny and less room to hide. And because food enforcement in the UK is based on a cost recovery model, the more regulatory visits a business receives, the higher those costs are likely to be.
There’s been very little publicity about these changes. Most businesses—and customers—won’t realise the meaning of a food hygiene score has quietly shifted.
If you run a food business, don’t assume you’re off the hook just because inspections might be less frequent or could happen remotely. Use this time to raise your standards, review your systems, and be ready for when your turn comes.
If you’re unsure where you stand, or you want to make sure your business is inspection-ready—get in touch for a confidential chat or book a mock inspection. Call us on 02920 026 566 or email: [email protected]
Change is here, whether we like it or not. Those who keep one step ahead will be the ones who thrive.
