How FreeFromFinder rates venues

We rate each venue separately for each allergen. The same pizza place might be Tier S for coeliac but Tier D for dairy. The tier tells you how the kitchen handles that allergen. The confidence score tells you how sure we are. If we are not sure enough, we keep researching rather than recommend.

Not all sources are equal, so we weight them. An official accreditation counts more than what a venue says about itself. The owner's own words count more than a third-party listing. A diagnosed-coeliac blogger counts more than a random Google review.

We save a copy of every page we read before we publish a rating. If the original page disappears six months later, we still have the proof. If a venue argues with a rating, we can show the evidence we used. If we change a rating, the old evidence stays on file.

Each time we check a venue again, we save a fresh copy with the date. Over time this shows how a venue's allergen story has changed.

Each rating has a confidence score from 0 to 1. Three things push it up: how many independent sources back it, how trustworthy those sources are, and how recent they are. A Tier S venue with three accreditations scores higher than a Tier S venue with only one enthusiastic blog post.

• If we are not sure enough, the venue stays off the recommended list while we keep researching.
• We re-check the top venues in each city every 90 days.

When people report being glutened, turned away, or sent the wrong dish, we leave that in the summary. We do not smooth it over. So if a venue card has no warning, you know there is no warning to give, and that is useful information too.