A café in Erith has been given a score of one-out-of-five in a report by Food Standards Agency.

The Bookstore Café at The Old Library on Walnut Tree Road was rated one-out-of-five on Wednesday, June 28.

This means that the food hygiene at The Bookstore Café needs “major improvement”.

Food Standards Agency (FSA) inspects businesses across the country, assessing hygiene and safety, structural compliance, and confidence in management.

Across the UK, every food outlet including convenience stores, restaurants, hospitals, and care homes are given a hygiene rating.

What each hygiene rating means:

0 - Urgent improvement necessary

1 - Major improvement necessary

2 - Some improvement necessary

3 - Hygiene standards generally satisfactory

4 - Hygiene standards good

5 - Hygiene standards very good

Food Standards Agency gave the following scores to The Bookstore Café:

Hygienic food handing: Includes preparation, cooking, re-heating, cooling and storage: Improvement necessary

Cleanliness and condition of facilities and building: Includes having an appropriate layout, ventilation, hand washing facilities and pest control to enable good food hygiene: Improvement necessary

Management of food safety: Checks in place to ensure food sold or served is safe to eat, evidence that staff know about food safety, and the food safety officer has confident that standards will be maintained in future: Major improvement necessary

A spokesperson for The Bookstore Café said: "Over the last couple of months, The Bookstore has found it difficult to keep up to date with its usually high standards of management procedures and practices.

"This is due to the continued pressures of rising costs, and the challenges of recruitment in the hospitality sector.

"This meant that when a Food Safety Officer visited us a couple of weeks ago, we were given until 01 August to make all necessary improvements.

"We are delighted to say that these have now been completed and we look forward to our next visit from the Food Safety Team.”