You get two chances at an A in every cycle. Most people only use one

The letter grading cycle has a feature that gets missed: you have two opportunities to earn an A, and only the second one is graded.

How it runs

Initial inspection. If you score 0 to 13, that is an A, the card goes up, and your next cycle begins in eleven to thirteen months.

If you score 14 or more, you are scored but not graded. No card yet. An inspector returns, unannounced, at least seven days later and typically within a month.

The re-inspection is graded. 0 to 13 is an A. 14 to 27 is a B. 28 or more is a C.

The part worth internalising

The initial inspection at 14 points does not give you a B. It gives you a scored, ungraded visit and a second attempt.

If you use the gap properly, an initial score in the high teens can still end the cycle at an A.

What determines the gap between cycles

Not the grade you end up with. The higher of your initial and re-inspection scores.

So an initial 22 followed by a re-inspection at 9 gets you the A card — and your next cycle still comes round in five to seven months rather than eleven to thirteen, because the 22 is the number that sets the interval.

Worth knowing before you conclude that a recovered A resets everything. It resets the card, not the calendar.

Using the week

You know roughly when they are coming — at least seven days, usually within a month — and you know what they cited, because it is on the report in your hand.

That is more information than you get at any other point in the cycle. Most operators use it to clean.

Better use: work the report. Take each violation and ask whether the condition behind it has been removed, not whether the instance has been tidied. The returning inspector has read the last report and will look at those items specifically.

What not to do with the week

Do not spread effort evenly across the kitchen.

The items scored highest were scored highest because of condition level — the inspector's judgment of how extensive the problem was. Those are the ones most likely to recur at the same level, and they are where your points are.

If the re-inspection also goes badly

Score badly enough and monitoring inspections may begin: roughly monthly, scored but not graded, until you get below 28.

Which is a strong argument for treating the week between the initial and the re-inspection as the most valuable week in your compliance año. It is the one point in the cycle where you know what is wrong, know roughly when they are coming, and still have time.