Top tips for allergen control

1.5 million people in the UK have a food allergy or intolerance. Around 10 people each year die from eating something that they are allergic to and many more become severely ill. Food allergies are a major food safety issue and quite rightly command a great deal of attention from the media and the Food Standards Agency.

Caterers have a legal responsibility to declare allergens in their products and to prevent them contacting other products. No one could doubt that fully complying with these important regulations is the right thing to do but, unless you manage a food business, it is hard to imagine just how hard that can be.

Here are some practical tips that are key to good allergen management:

1. Train, train and train

Allergen management is dependent on humans and humans make errors. Sometimes due to lack of care, but often due to not knowing better. Make sure all new starters and agency staff are given allergy awareness training on their first day and know to refer an allergic customer to a manager straightaway. There are some great food allergy awareness e-learning courses available that will ensure staff understand the reasons why allergen controls are so important instead of seeing allergy sufferers as ‘fussy’ or difficult.

2. Designate allergen champions

Choose back-of-house and front-of-house allergen champions and make sure at least one is always available in both locations. They should attend the Level 3 Award in Food Allergen Management which is a one-day face-to-face course which will teach them to hazard spot and to predict mistakes that could lead to serious allergen incidents. They will need to know and understand your allergen procedures and menu inside out. Providing them with ‘allergen trained’ badges will make sure your team know who to refer to.

3. Encourage dialogue with allergy sufferers

A large proportion of allergy deaths occur in teenagers and young adults. It is believed this is because they are embarrassed to make people aware of their allergies and willing to ‘take a chance’. If you don’t declare allergens on signage or labels, you are legally obliged to display a sign like ‘if you have food allergies and intolerances, please let us know’ so that customers are aware the information is available. Making it a service standard to ask all customers if they have any allergies when they are served and the wearing of ‘allergen trained’ badges can make allergy sufferers feel safe and that their allergies will be taken seriously.

4. Have strong communication channels

Often allergic incidents occur when a customer has made someone aware of their allergy, but this information has not been communicated clearly to the person responsible for preparing the food. It is not unusual, either, for the wrong meal to be given to a customer due to poor communication between the chef and the server. Allergy sufferers should be referred to a front-of-house allergen champion who will provide product information. They will then liaise with the back-of-house champion who will supervise the preparation and service of the food.

5. Review your allergen information regularly

Your supplier isn’t legally obliged to notify you when the ingredients within a product change, so you should ensure that they will and how they will do this before taking on any suppliers. When ingredients do change you may need to amend your allergen charts, labels, website and other promotional literature. To avoid the risk of out-of-date information being available, you should consider cloud based allergen software, Menu Guide, which allows customers to see at a glance which meals contain the allergen that they cannot eat and allows them to filter your menu according to those that they can eat. A link to this information can be put on your website or customers can find this out by scanning a QR code in the restaurant with their phone.

FIND OUT MORE

Melissa Thompson is a Chartered Environmental Health Officer and the Managing Director of Safer Food Scores. Her team provide advice and training in food hygiene, health and safety and food labelling matters to a wide range of food businesses, large and small. They can supply allergen e-learning, carry out face to face allergen training, conduct allergen audits and risk assessments, provide food allergen policies and check your allergen information before uploading on Menu Guide.

Please contact Safer Food Scores if you would like to find out more.