Good Food Guide to be relaunched in app form this spring

The Good Food Guide will not return as a print publication and is instead being relaunched as an app this spring.

The guide's publisher Adam Hyman said this was to ensure it remained current as in recent years the physical format had become "inefficient, slow, and incomprehensive".

The app will be continuously updated with search functions for lists, insights, and maps, and will be available via membership of the Good Food Club.

It marks a new era for the guide after it was sold by Waitrose & Partners to hospitality membership network CODE Hospitality in 2021.

Waitrose bought the guide from Which? In 2013 but said last year it had no plans to publish future editions.

In a post on the guide's website, Hyman, who is the founder of CODE, wrote: "Our ethos will remain the same when it comes to reviewing restaurants (we do not accept free meals) and our focus will continue to be around supporting local hospitality - be it cafes, pubs, bistros; not just fine dining - and telling you where to get good food and warm hospitality."

He added that the guide's scoring system had been tweaked but did not reveal further details.

The Good Food Guide was founded in 1951 by journalist Raymond Postgate, who was so appalled at the state of food in Britain that he launched the Good Food Club, which he initially called the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Food.

Postgate recruited an army of volunteers to clandestinely visit restaurants and their reports were compiled to make the first edition of the guide, which sold 5,000 copies.

While the debut edition included 600 entries, the 2020 guide had 1,200.