The reputational damage caused by an incorrect food rating being uploaded to the Food Standards Agency Website (FSA) and the subsequent barrage of business-bashing comments on social media have been devastatingly felt by Ryde’s newest French cafe, Crepe Lovers, the owner tells News OnTheWight.
The Isle of Wight council have admitted an error was made uploading incorrect data.
This information about the new business’s first food and hygiene inspection was read on the FSA Website and posted to social media, leading to a massive downturn in business for Crepe Lovers, owner Emanuel Ribeiro said, to the point where the restaurant’s income is no longer covering staff wages.
£100,000 invested into the venture
A teacher on the Isle of Wight, Emanuel, and his wife Paula, wanted to bring their passion for French food to the Island, so decided to invest in Ryde by opening Crepe Lovers restaurant in Ryde’s High Street in October 2021. Crepe Lovers employs nine local members of staff.
Having invested around £100,000 in converting the former mobile phone shop and kitting it out as an airy and roomy cafe, the new venture was doing well, picking up a loyal base of customers keen to try their wide range of crepes, galettes, waffles, toasted paninis, cakes and pastries.
So what went wrong?
News OnTheWight sat down with Emanuel to hear about what had taken place.
After seeing what had happened on social media and from what we’d been told by Emanuel, we also put a series of questions to the Isle of Wight council.
Here’s where it all started
On 16th February Crepe Lovers had their first food and hygiene inspection. For obvious reasons, they’re not pre-announced.
Emanuel had asked multiple times over the previous few months for advice from the council, so he assumed this visit was them coming to deliver that.
Leaving the school, he travelled back to Crepe Lovers to find it was a formal inspection.
FSA Website showing 1 / 5 rating
Emanuel heard nothing for almost four weeks, when out of the blue he received a call from an Island news source asking for a quote from him in relation to his restaurant’s FSA rating of 1 out of 5.
“What rating of 1?” was his response.
It then became clear that a post on social media, made by the OMGOMG Website (that gets its data from the FSA Website) had posted that Crepe Lovers had been inspected and received a rating of 1 out of 5.
A damaging error made
Emanuel immediately took this up with the council and it was quickly discovered that a major error had been made.
In addition to that, the rating they should have received was a 3/5 rating, not 1/5. Emanuel is challenging the 3 rating and the council have agreed to reinspect his premises within the next three months.
Learning that the rating was a 3 not 1 out of 5, Emanuel says the editor of the Island news source told him they were no longer running the story, as they were only interested in covering 0 or 1 out of 5 ratings.
Open invitation
Emanuel says the issues leading to a 3/5 rating are mostly to do with paperwork. He believes Crepe Lovers deserves a 5/5 rating and is fully committed to this.
He’s so confident in his cleanliness he told News OnTheWight that he would welcome potential customers to pop in to Crepe Lovers and he’d be happy to show them around, so they can see the set-up with their own eyes and how clean it is.
“Everything after that post continued the damage”
However, Emanuel says the social media post in March with the incorrect and damaging information about his business had been shared and attracted many disparaging comments.
“Everything that happened after that post was made live continued the damage”
The council admit error
An Isle of Wight council (IWC) spokesperson told News OnTheWight,
“We are aware that an error was made in the uploading of the food hygiene rating for Crepe Lovers in Ryde. We have contacted the business and advised them and apologised for the error. The incorrect rating has been removed from the Website.
“As you would expect we are concerned about this error and are currently undertaking a review into how this happened.”
At time of publishing, the outcome of that review is still unknown. News OnTheWight did ask how long it would take, but the council failed to answer.
Meeting with IWC
To get to the bottom of how the error had been made, Emanuel attended a meeting with council officers, where they apologised and offered to carry out another inspection free of charge (follow up inspections are usually charged at around £200 each). He said,
“Everyone has failures or makes mistakes. The problem is the damage caused, which will be ongoing unless something else happens.
“Who is going to take responsibility for the damage to the business? Who is going to take responsibility for the mental health of the staff? Some of whom did not want to go into work because of fear of being abused by customers.”
Compensation payout?
News OnTheWight asked the council how much they would be compensating Crepe Lovers for the damage caused by the incorrect rating.
A spokesperson from the council told News OnTheWight,
“It is worth noting where a claimant has suffered economic loss only, the Council owes no duty to any private business owner to make them a profit. The loss of an opportunity to make a profit is not an infringement of their legal rights.
“Where a loss of profit is attributable to a mistake made by the Council this may become a claim in negligence against the authority, but it would be for the business owner to prove that any drop in income was solely attributable to the mistake and no other contributory factors.
“The authority has also offered Crepe Lovers, without prejudice, a nominal payment to cover time and trouble for this incident. The amount will not be disclosed as is confidential to the business.”
However, Emanuel says the council have recently “offered to look into their insurance for an eventual compensation”.
Weekday trade has disappeared
Emanuel told News OnTheWight that since the incorrect rating was posted on social media, takings have dropped dramatically,
“The reality is that we have been struggling for the past few weeks to make enough to pay the wages.”
Crepe Lovers employs nine local staff and Emanuel stressed that although the business does well on Saturdays when holiday-makers visit the Island, local trade is needed to sustain the business throughout the week days and that’s what’s changed since the damage was caused by the incorrect rating.
Unfounded allegations
Although the social media page that had originally shared details of the incorrect rating removed that post and apologised, the damage had already been done says Emanuel.
The post was shared beyond the confines of their Page with damaging comments hurled at the business.
He says there were many unfounded allegations about Crepe Lovers, including the far-fetched suggestion they’d bribed the council to remove their listing from the FSA Website. This is something Emanuel obviously emphatically denies.
Previous errors posted to FSA Website
News OnTheWight asked the council whether they have ever posted an incorrect rating to the FSA Website before.
They replied that there were some data issues in 2017 when they had a new database system installed (three incidents), and one case in 2022.
There is more to this story yet to come, but in the meantime, Emanuel is keen to understand how the council intend to fix the damage caused to his business.
