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Food complaints

If you’re concerned about the hygiene standards of a place where you’ve eaten or purchased food, there are a few things you can do.

Firstly, you can check what the inspector found last time the safety checks were made, including the level of confidence there was in the management, on the national food hygiene rating website.

Reporting food you have purchased

If you’ve purchased food which is unacceptable, we recommend returning the food to the store where it was purchased and informing the vendor of the problem. If you’re not satisfied with their response or they fail to adequately address your concerns, please contact us for further advice. We can only investigate complaints about food purchased in Newark and Sherwood. If the food has been purchased elsewhere we have no powers to investigate, but we will pass the details on to the appropriate authority.

We can help with:

  • food which may have caused food poisoning or is contaminated
  • food containing foreign objects (such as glass, insects, metal etc.)
  • rotten and decomposing food

You should contact trading standards at Nottinghamshire County Council for help with:

  • food quality (eg over-ripe fruit and vegetables)
  • false descriptions and inappropriate labelling of food and drink
  • tampering (eg. added water, fat etc.).

Reporting an issue at a local food business

If you’ve recently seen something at a food business that doesn’t look right, please get in touch to provide us with the details so that checks can be made. Even if you think your complaint appears trivial, we are happy to discuss an issue and provide advice.

What we will do

We’re impartial and will check all serious matters thoroughly and promptly.

We’ll investigate and:

  • establish if the food meets food safety requirements
  • identify the problem and give appropriate advice
  • provide information to the food industry in order to raise and maintain standards
  • enforce any food safety laws that have been broken
  • keep you informed of our progress, findings and the outcome of the investigation

We will not get involved in seeking compensation for you and we have no influence in relation to gestures of goodwill. We will not provide your details to manufacturers or retailers without your express consent.