Dorset Food Hygiene: Wareham Mobile Caterer Rated 1

A mobile caterer registered on North Street in Wareham has been given a food hygiene rating of 1 after an inspection on 25 August 2026. A 1 means “major improvement necessary”.

The business is listed on the register as Unforgotten Salt Pig. It is the only one of 180 Dorset Council inspections from August and September, published so far, to score below 3.

Most of the rest was good news. 171 of the 180 scored the top rating of 5, and 50 of those were marked “very good” in every area the inspector checks.

What the inspection found

Each inspection scores three areas. The Food Standards Agency record for Unforgotten Salt Pig, a mobile caterer at 6 North Street, Wareham, shows:

• Hygienic food handling: generally satisfactory
• Cleanliness and condition of facilities and building: generally satisfactory
• Management of food safety: major improvement necessary

So the low rating comes from the third area: the checks and records a business keeps to show its food is safe, and whether the officer is confident standards will hold. Food handling and the condition of the kit were both rated satisfactory.

The register lists 6 North Street as the address of a separate registration, The Salt Pig café, which has its own rating of 4, from an inspection on 19 November 2025. The 1 applies only to the mobile catering registration. Other Salt Pig registrations in the district, at Church Street in Wareham and at Putlake Farm in Langton Matravers, are rated 5.

No reply from the business had been posted on the register on 2 October, and no new rating was pending.

The 3s and 4s

Eight other August inspections came in below 5. None scored below “generally satisfactory” in any area.

A 3 means “generally satisfactory” and a 4 means “good”. The three premises rated 3 were each marked “generally satisfactory” in all three areas.

171 scored 5

Every September inspection published so far, 67 of them, scored 5. So did 104 of the 113 from August.

Share this chartFacebookWhatsAppXCopy linkEmbed

These September 5s were marked “very good” in all three areas:

• Bridport: Bridport Community Hospital, the kitchens at Sir John Colfox School, St James’ Park Care Home and Jessicas Farmhouse Cakes on North Mills Trading Estate
• Wareham: Lotus Chinese Takeaway, 19 East Street
• Weymouth and Chickerell: Queen Charlotte on Chickerell Road and Local Food Links at Granby Industrial Estate
• Gillingham: Pip’s of Gill on the High Street
• Poundbury: Sunny Days Nursery on Middle Farm Way
• Wimborne and Ferndown: BP Minster on Leigh Road and Premier Inn Bournemouth Ferndown on Ringwood Road
• Swanage: No 34 Victoria Avenue, a guest house
• Elsewhere: Fingle Bridge in Wool, The Purple Turtle at Litton Lakes, Litton Cheney, and The Cabin at Wardon Hill, north of Dorchester

Other September 5s in the towns include Case and Brewer on Victoria Road, Dorchester, the Station Cafe at Sherborne station, The Gryphon School in Sherborne, All Saints CoE Academy in Weymouth, Tasty on East Street, Blandford, and Aleksandra’s Chocolate Café and Moore Than Tea in Bridport.

The whole register

The register lists 5,169 premises for the Dorset Council area. On 2 October:

Of the 4,048 premises with a rating, 3,858 have a 5. That is about 95%. Nobody in the district holds a 0.

The other two premises rated 1 have older ratings: the Kings Arms in Portesham, inspected on 2 May 2025, and Maharaja in Blandford Forum, inspected on 12 August 2021. Neither has a newer rating published.

The newest rating on the register is dated 18 September. Inspections from the last two weeks of September have not appeared yet.

Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole has its own register and is not included here.

What it means for you

• Read the three area scores, not just the number. The Wareham 1 is about food safety management, not dirty premises. The register shows which area pulled a rating down.
• Check which registration you are looking at. One business can hold several ratings, for a café, a van or a second site. The Salt Pig café on North Street is rated 4; its mobile catering registration is rated 1.
• A low rating can change. A business can ask Dorset Council for a re-inspection once it has made the improvements, and can post a right to reply on the FSA register in the meantime. Under the scheme’s guidance, a free re-rating visit in England “will not usually take place in the first three months following the inspection”. For the Wareham caterer, inspected on 25 August, that points to late November at the earliest.
• Report a concern. Food safety in the Dorset Council area is enforced by the council’s environmental health team, on envhealth@dorsetcouncil.gov.uk.

The entries above are reported exactly as the public register records them. We approached no business for comment. Any business named here that has been re-rated, or wants its reply noted, can contact us and we will publish an update.

For eating out, our Dorchester directory lists local cafés, pubs and restaurants.

Sources

• Food Standards Agency food hygiene rating register, read via the FSA’s open data API for Dorset Council on 2 October 2026, for every rating, inspection date, area score and total quoted.
• FSA record for Unforgotten Salt Pig, for the three area judgements, the address and the business type.
• FSA record for The Salt Pig, 6 North Street, for the café’s separate rating.
• Food Hygiene Rating Scheme: guidance for businesses, GOV.UK, for the right to reply and re-inspection rules.