Advice: Mind Your Head Week came to the SU P18>>
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Science: Strange drop in butterfly numbers P30 >> gair rhydd | freeword Cardiff ’s student weekly Issue 1083 Monday 17th October 2016 Tim Peake comes to Cardiff for his post-space tour
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Photographer: Mark Wyatt
Hygiene Horror: Cathays takeaways score low on food safety EXCLUSIVE Toby Holloway
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air Rhydd has acquired information concerning the food hygiene ratings of numerous restaurants, cafes, and kebab shops in Cardiff. Following an investigation by Gair Rhydd, it has been revealed that many establishments popular with Cardiff University students scored below what is deemed by the Food Standards Agency as ‘generally satisfactory’. The Food Standards Agency works with local authorities to rate businesses out of five for overall food hygiene, and considers three key elements in doing so. According to the Food Standards Agency website, food.gov.uk, these include “how hygienically the food is handled”, “the condition of the structure of the buildings”, and “how the business manages and records what it does to make sure
food is safe”. There are six possible scores that can be given to businesses by food safety officers, ranging from zero - ‘urgent improvement necessary’, to five - ‘very good’. To score a zero, a restaurant, cafe or kebab shop would have to perform poorly in all three areas of food hygiene, whilst also possessing a history of food safety problems. Food hygiene ratings are essentially a measure of how safe the food at any given place is to eat, and can be very influential in a potential customer’s choice of where to dine. Out of the 1315 Cardiff businesses that received a food hygiene rating, 11 scored zero, whilst many others were rated below three. Gair Rhydd also conducted a survey of 139 people, in order to find out which of Cardiff’s takeaways students frequent most, which of these have low food hygiene ratings, and if there is a link between these things and cases of students suffering from food poisoning after eat-
ing in certain places. The Family Fish Bar was revealed as Cardiff’s most popular takeaway, with 41.7 per cent of people saying it was their favourite place to get food after a night out. McDonald’s came in second with 32.4 per cent of people saying it was their favourite, whilst T&A Kebabs was third with 20.9 per cent. Despite being the most popular takeaway among those who answered the questionnaire, The Family Fish Bar received one of the lowest scores for food safety earlier in the year, with a rating of only one out of five. However, its has since improved this, with a recent inspection granting them a new rating of four out of five, or ‘good’. All the branches of McDonald’s in Cardiff scored the full five out of five, however there was ‘improvement necessary’ at T&A Kebabs, who managed only a two out of five. Chicken Cottage was selected by two out of the 139 people surveyed as their
favourite place to buy food after a night out, however the city centre branch on St Mary’s Street scored the lowest food hygiene rating possible, with zero out of five. This means that it failed in all three elements of food safety, and has been advised that urgent improvement is necessary in order to avoid closure. Cathays Fish and Chips on Crwys road also scored the lowest possible rating, as did Andalucia Kebab House and Spicy Hut, both on City Road. Many other businesses received a rating of one, which means ‘major improvement necessary’, including popular student outlets the Family Fish Bar and Mama’s Kebab House, both on Salisbury Road. Despite this, 10 per cent of respondents said that Mama’s was their favourite place to eat after a night out.
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he astronaut who returned from the International Space Station earlier this year visited Techniquest in Cardiff Bay as part of his post-flight tour of the UK. Over 200 children from local schools came to hear from the man himself about life in space and his six month mission. Nathan Wyburn, a food artist from Ebbw Vale presented Tim with a space-inspired portrait made from chocolate and space themed confectionary such as flying saucers, galaxy bars and mars bars. Techniquest asked Nathan to the event after he created Einstein using 5,000 Smarties for their 30th anniversary celebrations. Techniquest chief executive Lesley Kirkpatrick said: “Tim’s journey and time on the International Space Station has given us a great opportunity to encourage children to be more curious about space and science.” Tim will continue his tour around the UK, going to cities such as London and Manchester.
Treatment cancelled due to poor ticket sales
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ardiff club night Treatment has been forced to cancel its debut show of the academic year, after failing to sell tickets. A statement on the event’s Facebook page said: “We wanted to do something a little different with this date but unfortunately it hasn’t been received as well as we’d hoped. “We’ve tried our hardest to make it happen and this has been an incredibly tough decision for us to make. “We’ve sold out every single Treatment we’ve put on in the city over the past 3 years, but it seems this one just wasn’t meant to be. The statement then goes on to ensure that tickets already purchased will be refunded. The event also sought to reinsure its customers that no future events will be affected, with the popular house night returning to Y Plas on 4th November.