The new owner of a popular St Albans café has bagged a 5-star hygiene rating after signing up to a council mentoring scheme.

Velina Grudeva recently took over Café Roma in St Albans city centre and became one of the first people to sign up to the new initiative, one of the only such schemes in the UK.

The scheme saw her receive training by the Council’s food, health and safety team about how to comply with food safety regulations.

Upon its most recent inspection, the café received the perfect five stars, a quality mark that assures customers of “very good” standards.

Velina said: "I decided to strike out with a café business of my own after ten years working for Costa Coffee.

"One of the first challenges that I faced was making sure that I was up to date with the rules on food safety and that the key controls were in place to deal with all the hazards and risks.

"The food mentoring scheme was very helpful in ensuring everything was in place and I would recommend it.

"I was very pleased that afterwards I was able to get the top food hygiene rating."