The difficulty with food poisoning bacteria is it does not affect the appearance or taste of your curry or pizza.

But the health effects can be devastating. Nearly every day in Britain, someone dies from food poisoning.

Last year, nationally, there were 329 deaths and around 80,000 formal notifications of food poisoning.

The cost to the economy as a whole is estimated to be around £900m.

Last year, environmental health bosses carried out "emergency closures" at a handful of Preston food businesses which were deemed to pose a "significant risk to public health". This was after 500 inspections.

Among the worst was a business which had both a rat and a mouse infestation.

>> Preston's filthiest takeaways named

But Simon Neighbour, environmental health manager at Preston Council, says general food hygiene standards have been rising over the past year since an overhaul in the way inspections were carried out.

He says: "All food poisonings are preventable.

"Most businesses out there are really good. We've got so few zero and one star premises and we're really encouraged by this.

"At the end of the inspection process, we want to improve the premises pretty much by whatever means it takes.

"You can't say if you eat at a zero or one-star place you will get food poisoning but you can say there's enough failures to say that the premises represents a greater risk.

"We randomly buy food all the time and doner kebab meat always comes back okay. Washed salad is the thing we really have to watch for."

In 12 months, the number of worst performing premises in Preston dropped by 70%, from 24 to only 7, and by 32% in the second worst category, from 116 down to 74.

However, there were 388 cases of food poisoning reported in Preston last year – up 67 on 2006 – but it is not clear how many of those were due to food businesses or caused by people cooking at home.

Yesterday, Preston Council published the results of its latest environmental health inspections for the first time.

More than 500 premises are rated with between zero and five stars for their hygiene and cleanliness.

The aim of the Foodsafe scheme is to make sure the people of Preston are eating as much five-star food as possible.

Mr Neighbour, who is a chartered environmental health practitioner, says: "This will be the one thing that maintains pressure on the poorly performing ones to up their game a little bit.

"The public can make a more informed choice about where they want to eat.

"It's all about our dual role – we've got an enforcement role on the flip side of our advisory, educational role.

"If we can get every two-star up to a three-star, everybody wins."

Mix Masala in Plungington Road was among four takeaways given just a one-star rating at its last inspection when officers noted that "staff had poor appreciation of hazards and control measures" and found cross-contamination issues.

But owner Moynul Islam says this was before he took over the shop almost a year ago.

During an unannounced visit to the premises, he produces food temperature records and allows the Evening Post to see behind the scenes while he prepares food for his customers.

He says: "We've never had any complaints – most of the people give us compliments and they recommend other people to get food from here.

"After 7.30pm we can't look at each other, we're that busy."

Around the kitchen, there are signs up reminding his team of seven staff to wear protective clothing, wash their hands, and clean the work surfaces.

He says: "I'm trying to maintain all the standards.

>> View here for those given no stars

>> View here for those given one star

>> View here for those given two stars

>> View here for those given three stars

>> View here for those given four stars

>> View here for those given five stars

>> View the full ratings here


"There's lots of things to remember, that's why I keep lots of records.
"It's very easy. For anybody who knows how to do the monitoring, it's very easy – otherwise it's very hard."