A Wiltshire kebab van has been slammed by food hygiene inspectors who handed it a zero-out-of-five rating.

AJ’s Kebab Van, which can be found at Hangar 88 in Hullavington between Chippenham and Malmesbury, was slapped with the worst possible grade during an inspection last month.

The awarding of a score of zero means that “urgent improvement is required”, and only eight establishments in Wiltshire are currently carrying such a low mark.

Inspectors from the Food Standards Agency will regularly inspect businesses across the county and hand them scores from zero to five based on their performance in three key areas.

These include a business’s hygienic handling of food, the cleanliness and condition of their facilities and their management of food safety.

Inspectors found that “major improvement” was necessary in the hygienic handling of food at AJ’s Kebab Van.

This means that the business did not meet the required standards of hygiene when cooking, preparing, storing, re-heating or cooling their food.

The takeaway van was given the same verdict for their management of food safety, which includes the systems and checks in place to ensure food that is sold is safe to eat, as well as the staff’s knowledge of food safety.

They performed slightly better for the cleanliness and condition of their facilities although inspectors still told them improvement was “necessary”.

Reacting to the poor rating, AJ’s owner Mehmet Gunevakan admitted that there had been problems with both the storage facilities, such as fridges and freezers, and the business’s food hygiene paperwork.

But Mr Gunevakan emphasised that these problems had now been dealt with and the situation was much better a month on from the inspection.

He said: “After the inspector came here, we fixed everything. There were no papers when they came here, we never had them before, but I’ve got all of them now.

“They said our freezer was no good but after they told us to make all the changes, I bought everything new.

“I bought a new freezer and a new fridge, they’re all new now and we’ve decorated now as well.”

Mr Gunevakan added that he is eager for the business to be rated again and confident they will score higher next time.

He said: “Honestly, everything is better, I have made it all better like new.”

The van is open from 4pm seven days a week, and offers a variety of food, but will open earlier if people call ahead.