Getting Listed: Free, Facts Only, Hygiene Rating 3 or Above

How do you get listed on caterers.trade?

Listing is free. There is no fee, no commission and no charge per enquiry, and customers contact you directly. To be listed, a business needs to be registered as a food business with a food hygiene rating of 3, 4 or 5 (or Pass in Scotland), evidence of where it is based, and at least two kinds of catering it takes on. Send the business name, the town you are based in, a phone number, a website if you have one, and what you do, through the modify listing form.

What does a listing show?

Facts only: the business name, where it is based (a town and outward postcode for home-based businesses, never a home street address), the kinds of catering it does, the areas it covers, contact details it publishes, and its food hygiene rating as text with the inspection date and the council that gave it, linked to the Food Standards Agency. There are no star ratings, reviews, badges or paid placements.

Why a rating of 3 or above?

Because a rating of 3 means the council found hygiene generally satisfactory, and 0 to 2 means it found improvement necessary. Ratings are matched on the Food Standards Agency's published data and refreshed every time the site is built, so if a business is re-inspected and its rating changes, the listing follows. A business rated below 3 can be listed once it has been re-rated at 3 or above. A business awaiting its first inspection can still be listed; the page simply shows no rating until the FSA publishes one.

How is the order decided?

By how recently the listing was checked, then by how complete it is. A listing with a phone number, a website and a full list of services sits above one with a phone number alone. Nothing about position is for sale, and there is no way to pay to move up.

Based in or also covers?

A business appears under a town as based in that town only where there is evidence it is based there, such as its food hygiene record or a trading address. Businesses that travel are shown on nearby town pages as also covers, which never counts towards whether a town page is published. Where several websites lead to the same business, it is listed once.

How do you change or remove a listing?

Use the modify listing form, on the site's own page for it. You can correct details, add services, change the areas you cover, or ask for the listing to be removed. Changes are checked before they go live. The food hygiene rating shown cannot be edited; it comes from the FSA's published data, and changes when the council's rating changes.