Knowledge Feed: Managing Allergen Risks in Food Businesses

Food allergies are a growing public health problem, with recent research by Northwestern University revealing an increase in food allergies in both adults and children.¹ This can lead to serious implications for food businesses and must be managed effectively to ensure customer health is preserved.

The priority for food businesses must be to build awareness of the allergen risks and the current legal and practical safeguards that can help manage them. In the UK, food businesses are required to follow regulations that state certain ingredients must be clearly labelled. For example; businesses selling pre-packed foods for direct sale must highlight the presence of ingredients containing any of the allergens. For other food establishments, where food is not pre-packed, they must be able to provide allergen information when requested.

The key is to be aware that there are specific labelling requirements for today’s wide variety of food products and environments. The onus is on food businesses to find out the details and ensure they comply.

A best practice would be to implement a thorough allergen management system. This should include gathering up-to-date information on every aspect of the products served at your food business and the supply chain from which it is supplied. Effective communication with suppliers is essential in providing accurate information to your teams who, in turn, provide this to customers. Suppliers also have a legal obligation to provide a precise list of ingredients. You may well be able to reduce your company’s allergen risk by, quite simply, cutting down on the number of allergens you are using through menu planning.

Where allergen removal isn’t possible, effective food safety management requires constant vigilance:

• Alert your teams to any changes that may arise, for example product or ingredient substitution.
• Always check whether the replacement product/ingredient contains a food allergen – note it may contain a different allergen to those you have declared on your allergen menus.
• If your replacement product/ingredient does contain a food allergen, you must identify it and flag it appropriately to staff and customers.
• Introduce rigorous on-site controls to ensure that teams know how to respond to such changes.
• Don’t overlook other less obvious risk areas, such as food storage locations and customer service counters.

Effective staff training and engagement on this prioritised topic is critical. With the commensurate knowledge and robust processes, your team can identify allergens risks that should be addressed.

As so often in food safety management, it is important to motivate your managers and staff, ideally as part of a wider culture of food safety. This means holding regular meetings, for example, with your kitchen staff and your front of house teams. Explain to them why allergen risks are so important – both to customers and to your business – and reiterate the proactive checks and procedures you need them to observe every time a customer communicates they have an allergy to a particular food product.

Make it clear that no short cuts can be tolerated, whatever time and cost pressures they are under. Some of your team may have allergies themselves, or know people who do, which will encourage their buy-in.

Top tips for managing allergens in your food business:

• Have you made clear to your teams who has overall responsibility for allergen management within the food business?
• Is a responsible member of staff available on each shift to effectively manage requests from customers with allergies?
• If you use a sign requesting customers ask about allergens, is this displayed prominently in a place where customers make their food choices?
• Are staff clear on how to avoid allergen cross-contamination?
• Do kitchen staff know how to record allergens when recipes are changed, and is this adequately communicated throughout the business?
• Are there procedures in place when ingredients are delivered, to verify that you have received the items you have ordered?
• If there are any changes to the ingredients in your regular order (for example, substitutions of one product with another), do you have a procedure in place to approve and record this and identify whether there are any ingredient changes?
• Are their clear instructions in place for the cleaning of premises, equipment and work tools?
• Are teams routinely trained on allergens, and if so, is this training regulary refreshed? If all colleagues are aware of the risks and control measures that exist within your business, you can ensure that all customers have a safe and pleasant experience when visiting.

For businesses who wish to validate their procedures and highlight this to their customers that they are actively managing allergens, there are schemes that exist in the UK. One of these is Gluten Free Accreditation Scheme operated by Coeliac UK. This provides venue accreditation for caterers and reassures customers that gluten free meals can be safely provided at a venue.

While nothing can be more important than avoiding human tragedy, there is another huge upside to effective allergen risk management. It can increase consumer confidence in your offering.

With allergy suffers now so numerous in the population, it is inevitable they will form/influence a significant part of your customer base – look after them and they will reward you with their loyalty.

Source

¹. Gupta, MD, MPH, R. (2019). Why Are Food Allergies on the Rise? Northwestern Medicine, Feinberg School of Medicine