CleanScores Enhances Local Restaurant Results

I recently spoke with Guy Michlin, the co-founder of CleanScores.com. CleanScores is attempting to aggregate and disseminate public health department data in major metro areas in the U.S. through a destination site but also syndicate its data to third-party local search sites.

In an initial email to me Michlin explains better and more succinctly than I could the genesis and objectives of the site:

The idea behind CS came from a research my partner, a Stanford professor, did on the LA grade cards (the mandatory display of restaurant’s hygiene scores in the restaurant window). His research proved that just by requiring restaurants in LA to display their scores in the window the city managed to reduce foodborne illnesses by 20% almost instantaneously (all of the sudden this information that wasn’t available to consumers before became easily accessible and consumers changed their behavior and switched from dirty restaurants to clean ones; clean restaurants with an “A” score had 6% increase in revenues as a result of the grade cards). Our idea is to replicate the LA system across the US by creating a national standard around health and cleanliness and making it easily accessible to the public online and offline.

Amazingly, CleanScores has already had succeed getting its placards into the windows of some local restaurants in San Francisco, despite having no consumer recognition or brand whatsoever. Advertising is the primary business model and Michlin and I spoke about that for some time. He does have a reasonable and potentially viable strategy.

Here’s a citation to CleanScores on Yelp (click to enlarge):

 

And in the “details” tab of the info-window on Google Maps:

Michlin is ready to syndicate his data to any local search site that is interested.

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