Sustainable Restaurant Association opens the Doors for diners
London (PRWEB UK) 19 June 2014 -- From this week, the 250,000 diners who use the Scores on the Doors website every month can now see scores for both hygiene and sourcing, two of their top priorities when choosing a restaurant.
Launched to celebrate Food Safety Week, the partnership between the Sustainable Restaurant Association and Scores on the Doors ensures that diners can now see additional sustainability credentials for all 4,000 SRA restaurant, café, pub and hotel Members. With more than 83% of SRA Members receiving a 4 or 5 hygiene rating, compared with a national average of 71%, there’s a strong relationship between restaurants that operate responsibly and those that score top marks on cleanliness in their kitchen.
Mark Linehan, Managing Director of the SRA, said: “The response to recent food scandals, such as horsemeat, demonstrate that diners’ demand for responsible business practices is rising. They want clear, simple and transparent information so that they can make quick and informed decisions about where they eat out and Scores on the Doors have been quick to respond to consumer demand. One search now immediately allows diners to seek reassurance on both cleanliness and conscience.”
Consumer research consistently shows that 70% of diners would prefer to eat in a sustainable restaurant and more than 50% say they would pay more to do so.*
Scores on the Doors carries hygiene ratings conducted by local authorities in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland in almost 500,000 restaurants, pubs, cafes, takeaways and hotels. The checks cover three main areas: the handling of the food, the condition of the building, and the measures the business has in place to make sure the food is safe. Restaurants are then given one of six ratings, with a ‘5’ being the best, reflecting a ‘very good’ standard of hygiene. In Scotland, sites are rated as ‘Pass’ or ‘Improvement Required’.
The SRA Sustainability Rating assesses food service businesses across three main pillars – Sourcing, Society and Environment and awards a One, Two or Three Star rating.
Paul Hiscoe Director of Transparencydata, which operates Scores on the Doors, said: "Diners want to be confident that the restaurants they eat in are clean and hygienic and that's why a quarter of a million people visit the Scores on the Doors website every month. We know that where food comes from and how it is produced really matters to an increasing number of diners too, so this is a natural progression for us and we are delighted to partner with the SRA to make it easy for diners to find sustainable restaurants.”
Notes to Editors
*56% of diners said they would be willing to pay more for a meal in a restaurant that operated sustainably – The Discerning Diner – Populus survey for the Sustainable Restaurant Association, January 2013. http://www.thesra.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Consumer-Report-2013.pdf
The Sustainable Restaurant Association’s (SRA) Rating is regarded as the Michelin Stars of Sustainability. It recognises the most sustainable restaurants in the UK and across the world, and gives diners a simple means of finding places to eat in that match their values. As the leading authority on sustainability across the hospitality and food service sector, the SRA also provides expert advice to restaurants, pubs, hotels, cafés and caterers.
http://www.thesra.org
@the_SRA
How restaurants are rated:
The SRA Sustainability Rating involves restaurants completing a survey, providing answers and evidence to questions across 14 areas of sustainability. The SRA then assesses the results and rates the restaurants accordingly.
Three-Star Sustainability Champions – These restaurants have demonstrated exceptional all round sustainability, scoring consistently well across every category totalling at least 70%.
Two-Star Sustainability Champions – These restaurants have demonstrated excellent all round sustainability, scoring at least 60%.
One-Star Sustainability Champions – These restaurants have demonstrated good all round sustainability, scoring at least 50%.
Scores on the Doors is the world’s largest database of official food hygiene inspections, updated every night and responsible for improvements at over 50% of all food businesses in the UK. All information is uploaded by local authorities within 4 weeks of the latest inspection taking place, conducted according the Food Standards Agency’s national code of practice. Free i-phone and Android apps enable consumers to just point their smartphone at a food business to find out how many stars it got on its most recent inspection. For those businesses with 5 stars low cost promotional material such as posters, menu stickers, vehicle decals etc is available via http://www.fhrs-merchandise.co.uk.
http://www.scoresonthedoors.org.uk/
Ed Franklin, Sustainable Restaurant Association, http://www.thesra.org, +44 2074794235, [email protected]
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