91Èȱ¬

From the beginning of this month, regular council inspections of businesses serving, selling or preparing food will be used to calculate a Food Hygiene Rating of between 0 and 5.

A rating of 0 will indicate that "urgent improvement" is necessary while the top rating of 5 will mean that a business was found to have 'very good' hygiene standards.

The public will be able to access ratings through a searchable database overseen by the Food Standards Agency. But while businesses will be encouraged to display their ratings in their shop window, it won't be compulsory.

Food safety campaigners like Maria Battle, a senior director of Consumer Focus Wales, welcome the principle of the scheme but believe that it is under-mined by the practice of voluntary display.

"We know from the pilots, where the display of rating has been voluntary, that only 26 per cent of businesses have actually displayed them," she tells "Eye on Wales".

"And if it is a low food rating - below three - then it's very, very rare that they display their rating. And they're the businesses that people would choose not to eat in."

"Mandatory display in Los Angeles resulted in an immediate 20 per cent reduction in food-related illnesses - people being hospitalised."

"That saved hundred of thousands of pounds and also a lot of preventable human suffering. It's a no-brainer, it has to be made compulsory."

With all 22 Welsh councils signed up to the scheme, Consumer Focus Wales is lobbying Assembly Members to seek the legal powers from Westminster to make it compulsory for Welsh businesses to display its Food Hygiene Rating.

It's an aim that has the support of microbiologist Professor Hugh Pennington, who chaired the inquiry into the 2005 E.coli outbreak in South Wales which claimed the life of 5-year-old schoolboy Mason Jones five years ago this week.

"In principle I'm a believer in having this system as a mandatory system because it is self-evident that commercial pressure on a business - like fewer customers going in - is a very strong incentive for them to up their game."

But the Food Standards Agency is confident that voluntary display will work as consumers will draw their own conclusions when businesses choose not to display their Food Hygiene Ratings.

"What this scheme will deliver is an improvement in food hygiene in businesses and better consumer protection," says Steve Wearne, director of the Food Standards Agency in Wales.

"We believe consumer power should deliver a high level of take up across the board... (and) ...will make voluntary display work, but we will keep it under review. But making display mandatory would require legislation."

There are other practical objections to making the scheme mandatory.

Julie Barratt, director of the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health in Wales, fears that council officers would struggle to meet the demand for re-inspection from premises that have made improvements after initially receiving a low rating.

"Environmental health departments are currently under huge pressure and there's a question of, 'Do we have enough resources' to go around and implement this scheme as it currently stands."

"Certainly we would need significantly more resources to respond to people on an immediately or 'as soon as' basis."