Dunedin restaurants and food outlets appear to be taking food safety issues more seriously, with closures because of lack of compliance decreasing markedly as the year went on.
Diners are also taking notice, with a web page publicising restaurant gradings attracting more than 50,000 hits.
While 23 outlets were forced to close this year while they dealt with those problems, the same number as last year, there had been only one closure in the past three months, Dunedin City Council senior environmental health officer Wayne Boss said.
Since 2005, food outlets have been subject to a system where they are given a grade from A to D, which must be publicly displayed.
The system followed a 2004 review that identified 30 to 40 premises as an ongoing risk to diners.
Premises given a D grade could be closed, and their names published in the Food Watch section of the Otago Daily Times.
In 2007, 31 had been forced to close.
A website was established in 2008 which allowed people to check on the rating before they went out to eat.
Mr Boss said he was seeing a trend of decreasing closures, and he hoped there would be "far, far less" next year.
"There's been a significant drop-off.
"I'd like to think the message is getting out there to food businesses. We've worked hard on that, and there should be no misunderstandings."
There was a seasonal aspect to the issue, with a vermin infestation, including the discovery of a carcass, and droppings on food, causing problems in June.
Mr Boss said there would always be premises that had problems, as a business only had to lose two or three key staff, and it could lose the knowledge it needed to stay within the rules.
Council webmaster Sean Lee said the website page with the gradings had received 50,663 page views from 14,086 visitors from November 16, 2008, to December 16 this year.
