You must register with Knowsley Council if you operate a business within the borough that stores, handles, prepares, cooks, sells, or distributes foods.
You must register with the Council at least 28 days before you open a new food business. You must also register a food business if you take over an existing food business.
You must register every premises where you carry out food operations, including your home, and mobile or temporary premises such as stalls and vans. You must inform the Council of any significant changes to your business, for example if the business closes, the business changes from sole trader to a limited company or the scope of the business changes significantly.
Registration allows the Council to identify all food businesses within our area so that they can be inspected. It is a criminal offence to operate a food business without being registered with the relevant local authority.
There are some exemptions from the requirement to register with the Council. For example, organisers of one- off events like school fetes do not have to register with the Council because the food sales occur very infrequently. Domestic childminders who prepare food in the home for the children that they care for do not have to register directly with the Council but are subject to inspection. Please contact the Environmental Health Service if you are unsure if you need to register as a food business.
Some businesses that either store, handle, rewrap or prepare products of animal origin for distribution to other food businesses may need to be approved by the Council rather than being registered with the Council. Information about approval can be found here.
Apply for registration
You may apply to register a food business by completing a form online on gov.uk
Once you have completed an application you will receive an acknowledgement from the Food Standards Agency with a unique reference number. Following this, we will send you an email to advise of the next steps and signpost you to advice links.
If your business falls within the scope of the national food hygiene rating scheme, the Food Standards Agency (FSA) website will show your business as ‘Awaiting Inspection’