Allergy Menu Launches to Help Stop Food Allergy Deaths

A new app concept in the battle to improve food safety of restaurants is launched, enabling restaurant customers to view and filter a menu for known allergens along with food preferences, such a vegetarian and vegan.

According to The Food Safety Company Ltd which developed the app, 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.

The developer explains that some restaurants provide different menus, but simply do not cater for the complexity, such as they may provide a gluten-free menu, but not gluten-free and 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 app significantly reduces the risk of incorrect communication between customers and 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.

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.

The results are from a bespoke survey, released today by the UK Food Standards Agency (FSA), in partnership with Allergy UK (AUK) and the Anaphylaxis Campaign (AC), on the views of young people living with food allergies and intolerances. The survey also revealed that while 67% of respondents reported being aware of the legal requirement of food businesses to provide information on the top 14 allergens, only 14% felt extremely confident asking for allergen information when dining out and 14% reported feeling not at all confident.

These days, the British chain Pret-A-Manger announced it would provide full ingredient labeling on freshly made food after a 15-year-old girl died following an allergic reaction to a baguette. The girl died in 2016 after suffering a reaction to sesame seeds on a Pret baguette.