New York restaurants get GCSE-style food safety grading scheme

17th March 2010, 10:21am

Following a month-long consultation period, the New York City Health Department has launched a new scheme which will see restaurants publicly display letter grades summarising the results of food safety inspections.

Each establishment will post a placard at the point of entry, showing its current sanitary grade, and restaurants receiving A grades will be inspected less often than those receiving lower marks.

Under the new plan, a restaurant receiving an A grade will post it at the end of the inspection. If the grade is lower than an A, the restaurant will not have to post a grade until it has a chance to improve its sanitary conditions. The Health Department will return within a month to conduct a second inspection.

New York City Health Commissioner, Dr. Thomas Farley, said the grades would help consumers make better informed decisions: "New York City restaurants are among the world's best, and these simple reforms will make them even better. Giving consumers more information will help make our restaurants safer and cleaner. The grade in the window will give you a sense of how clean the kitchen is – and it will give every restaurant operator an incentive to maintain safe, sanitary conditions."

Each year the Health Department inspects 24,000 restaurants to monitor their compliance with the city's health code. The Health Department already posts restaurant inspection reports on its website. Each report includes a numerical score reflecting the number and severity of sanitary violations documented.

After Los Angeles instituted a letter grading system, the proportion of restaurants meeting the highest food-safety standards rose from 40% to more than 80%, and hospitalisations for food-borne illnesses fell.

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