There are fears consumers are being put at risk of food poisoning after it was revealed almost a third of food venues in some Kent districts have not had a hygiene inspection in the past two years.

In Folkestone and Hythe, 32% are overdue a visit from environmental health teams - while in Canterbury the figure is 29%.

Guidelines state most food premises should be inspected between six months and two years, depending on the level of risk.

Environmental health teams say a recruitment crisis and a backlog from the Covid pandemic are behind the trend, which is putting consumers at an increased risk of food poisoning and “allergen incidents”.

The public services union, Unison, said: “This is a serious public health issue.”

A spokesman said: “Inspections are now so delayed that it’s perfectly possible for food businesses with shoddy hygiene practices to operate with little fear of ever being caught.”

Overall, 928 of Kent’s 6,691 food premises have not been inspected in the past two years, according to the figures compiled by the BBC’s Shared Data Unit.

Emily Miles, the chief executive of the Food Standards Agency (FSA), which oversees food hygiene inspections in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, said councils were generally getting through backlogs of high-risk inspections, which mounted during the Covid lockdowns.

But she said the FSA was concerned lower-risk venues and new venues were not being checked.

She said: “It’s something that could be a slow burn to a very uncomfortable and unhelpful situation. We have high food standards in this country - but it’s something you won’t know you’ve got until it’s gone.”

The UK charity, Unchecked, said food standards had been affected by a “general curtailment of enforcement activity”.

A spokesman said: “It’s primarily the consequence of years of disinvestment into what used to be a pretty good system.”

Food hygiene reports focus on three elements: hygienic food handling, cleanliness and condition of facilities and building and management of food safety.

Hygienic food handling includes preparation, cooking, re-heating, cooling and storage whilst cleanliness and condition of facilities explores metrics such as having appropriate layout, ventilation, hand washing facilities and pest control to enable good food hygiene.

Management of food safety probes the systems or checks in place to ensure that food sold or served is safe to eat, evidence that staff know about food safety, and the food safety officer has confidence that standards will be maintained in future.

With scores ranging from five (best) to zero (worst), it is uncommon to see businesses fall severely short of expectations – but the results of poor hygiene standards can be stomach-churning when they are finally unveiled to the public.

Curry houses, fine dining venues and convenience stores in Kent have received low scores in recent months.

Despite featuring as one of the top three councils in Kent struggling to inspect businesses, Dover District Council has long refused to make food hygiene reports public.

However, a council spokesman for DDC said: “It is not possible to comment directly on the percentage of inspections which took place more than two years ago, without understanding what data has been used to arrive at this figure.

“However, there may be a number of factors which are likely to contribute to food businesses not being inspected within a two-year frequency.

“This includes a number of food businesses being considered as low risk and subject to a three yearly inspection frequency rather than two years or less, in line with the Food Standards Agency’s Food Law Code of Practice.

“Food safety is of paramount importance to Dover District Council and the team is dedicated to responding to matters of concern throughout the district and ensuring that poorly complying premises make the necessary improvements required.

A Canterbury City Council spokesman said: "It is not clear to us how this data has been reached and we therefore cannot be sure of its accuracy given the very short period of time we were asked to comment on this.

"For example, some premises are in a category for inspections every three years, so these would show up as not being inspected within two years, but this is because they do not need to be. Others are exempt from the programme of inspections completely.

"And the fact that businesses are closing and new ones opening on a regular basis could further skew the figures, as the numbers change all the time. We strongly suspect that some of those included in the figures are no longer open.

"However, what we can say with certainty is that food hygiene standards in our district have always been very good because we work constructively with businesses to help them get the best scores they can.

"At the moment, 91.87% of our businesses have a score rating of 3, 4 or 5. For those that are lower, we provide help and support to enable them to improve at their next inspection."

A Folkestone & Hythe District Council spokesperson said: “We have not had time to explore fully the way this data has been interpreted. However, it needs to be pointed out that numbers of outstanding inspections change daily due to inspections being completed and new food registrations which have to be inspected within 28 days of starting to trade.

“In the Folkestone and Hythe district there are more than 1,300 food registered businesses and the frequency of inspections is dependent on their risk ratings – every six months for those at very high risk to every three years for the lowest risk businesses like petrol stations selling sweets and crisps or chemists selling powdered baby milk.

“86% of our businesses are in the categories which have inspection periods of two to three years. We do have a small backlog in these categories, in part due to inspections put on hold during the pandemic, and we are working through them as quickly as possible.”

Some councils in the UK had not been to about half of the eateries in the area in over two years.

A spokesman for one such authority, Pembrokeshire Council, said a "national recruitment crisis" was behind its backlog.

As a result he said it left diners at increased risk of "food-poisoning", "allergen incidents" and "injuries" from eating unsafe food.