Allergy Menu Launches to Help Stop Food Allergy Deaths
Many of us now limit the types of food we eat, for some it’s simply because it will kill them, for others, it’s for health or moral reasons. However, it’s become a complex task to eat out these days, ensuring the food you have ordered is what you can eat. Some restaurants provide different menus, but simply don’t cater for the complexity, such as they may provide a gluten free menu, but not a gluten free & dairy free menu combined. Some restaurants provide complex matrixes, but nothing which is user friendly or easy to understand and the majority provide nothing at all, and rely on front of house staff communicating correctly the information, which is very prone to mistakes.
This simple but affective app provides the chef the ability to keep a live updated menu with allergy information held within it. Customers simply login to the app and view the menu filtered to only show those dishes that are safe for them to eat.
This app significantly reduces the risk of incorrect communication between customers & staff, especially when mistakes can be so easily made, and these mistakes can cost lives.
#EasyToAsk is the latest campaign to try and improve confidence for those will allergies to ask more, but it shouldn’t be up to the customer, restaurants should be legally required to provide this information to their customers in an easy to access and accurate way so that mistakes are never made. Verbal communication for allergy information should not be the method of communication when mistakes can be life threatening.
Up to “20% of the population experience some reactions to foods” so it’s no longer a minority issue, eating out should always be enjoyable ii should also always be safe.
Supporting information
Slater Country Inn in Staffordshire is an example of a restaurant already using the app https://allergymenu.uk/menu/DJX586
Key Benefits to Restaurants
- Meet regulations for allergy information in one simple step.
- Ensure your menu allergens are always accurate and up to date.
- Improve your customer experience for allergy sufferers, vegans and veggies.
- No need to re-print menus if you change ingredients.
- Handy email reminders to check your menu.
- Stop front of house staff making mistakes
- Keep your customers safe from harm.
Christina from The Food Safety Company Ltd said:
"This really helps improve how restaurants provide their allergen information, in a way that's easy to manage and update, I wish all restaurants used it."
foodsafetycompany.co.uk
Why Food Allergies Matter
Tragically, people who are sever food allergies can die from eating a food they are allergic too:
It’s not just about fatalities either, this article talks about a Survey that shows over half of young people with a food allergy or intolerance have avoided eating out in the last six months due to their condition.
- It is estimated that between 1-10% of adults and children have a food hypersensitivity. However as many as 20% of the population experience some reactions to foods which make them believe they do have a food hypersensitivity (The Association of UK Dietitians (BDA), 2015)
- Around 11-26 million members of the European population are estimated to suffer from food allergy. If this prevalence is projected onto the world’s population of 7 billion, it translates into 240-550 million potential food-allergic people; a huge global health burden (Pawankar R, et al, 2013)
- Food allergies are a cause of particular concern in young children, where the incidence of food allergy (often life threatening) is estimated to be greater in toddlers (5-8%) than in adults (1-2%) (Pawankar R, et al, 2013) • Food allergy affects 3-6% of children in the developed world (3). In the UK, it is estimated that the prevalence for food allergy is 7.1% in breast
Twitter is full of people explaining their frustration at the industry:
