Evidence of relationship between food business hygiene compliance and measures of food safety

In order to build up evidence for the relationship between compliance with food hygiene law and food safety, a series of statistical analyses were conducted using intermediate measures of food safety: The relationship between food business compliance and microbiological contamination sample outcomes, The relationship between food business compliance and identified foodborne disease outbreaks. Data was taken from two different datasets holding microbiological samples results. These provided 37,304 and 7,115 sample results respectively which were linked to the premises FHRS rating prior to the sample being taken. Similarly, 150 outbreaks were linked to premises to obtain their FHRS rating prior to the outbreak. Once the data had been linked a statistical analysis was undertaken to determine if there were differences between a premises FHRS rating and the likelihood of an unsatisfactory microbiological result or an outbreak of foodborne illness.