UK food hygiene scandal on the high street

Restaurants run by some of Britain's largest food chains are failing to meet basic legal hygiene standards, an investigation by The Independent has found.

A third of Yo! Sushi restaurants surveyed did not meet all the legal standards required of them, according to food safety ratings given by local councils. Twenty per cent of Pizza Hut outlets had similar problems while 18 of Pizza Express's 132 surveyed restaurants did not meet the standards.

Britain's foremost food expert, Professor Hugh Pennington, said the findings were disturbing.

Under the law, all restaurants are inspected every two years by environmental health officers and most hand out star ratings of between five and zero. Restaurants with no stars are "very poor" with a general failure to comply with legal requirements. One-star establishments have poor compliance while those with two stars need to make more effort to hit all the legal requirements – designed to stop the spread of bacteria that can cause gastro-intestinal diseases.

The Independent analysed the star rating of 1,270 outlets run by 10 of Britain's best-known restaurant chains. They include the likes of McDonald's, Burger King and KFC as well as more upmarket chains such as Pizza Express, Gourmet Burger Kitchen and Wagamama. Separately we used the Freedom of Information act to obtain reports on the most unhygienic restaurants. All of the companies had at least one branch, and in some cases dozens, failing fully to comply with food safety legislation.

Yo! Sushi, the Japanese seafood chain, was the worst performer of the 10 chains, with eight of its 23 restaurants in our sample (two thirds of its 37 outlets) receiving two stars or less.