Loomies biker café receives one-out-of-five hygiene rating

Loomies Café, on Alton Road at West Meon Hut, was given a one-out-of-five food hygiene rating following an inspection by the Food Standards Agency on November 13.

While the inspection rated the business’s hygienic food handling as “generally satisfactory”, it rated the cleanliness and conditions of the facilities and building – including having appropriate layout, ventilation, hand washing facilities and pest control to enable good food hygiene – as needing improvement.

The management of food safety, categorised by the Food Standards Agency as the system of checks in place to ensure that food sold or served is safe to eat, evidence that staff know about food safety, and the food safety officer has confidence that standards will be maintained in future, was found to require major improvement.

READ MORE: Mixed results for Romsey businesses in food hygiene result

Loomies owner Paul Fullick told the Chronicle that the low score was due to misplaced paperwork, which has since been found, and that the café will be reassessed sometime over the next few weeks.

He said: “We did have a low hygiene rating – some of our paperwork was lost when the inspector came round. We have rectified the problem, they are coming around in a couple of weeks to do a reassessment which we have paid for and we’ll be back up to normal.

“It is unfortunate, it just caught us off guard. Unfortunately, the staff member at the time couldn’t find the paperwork to show them, it wasn’t in the right place, which was our fault.

“We’ve never had less than a four, we’re usually quite close to a five and our customers know that, but it’s a combination of us not getting the paperwork right and a new staff member, so it’s been a shame. But it’s been a good exercise for us.”