Allergy Aware
Schools Catering Manual
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Intentional inclusion and accidental contamination
For an allergic or intolerant person there are two dangers to watch out for:
The allergen as an ingredient
If a food allergic person is shopping in a supermarket they can check the ingredients of everything they buy by reading the ingredients list on the label. As long as they know all the names under which their allergen may be listed they will be able to avoid that ingredient by not buying the product.
In a restaurant, cafe or school dining hall the situation is quite different as there is no list of ingredients to guide them. They can ask the server or the dinner lady what is in the food, but often no one will know for sure.
Most of deaths from allergy in catered situations have occurred when the ingredients (peanuts, tree-nuts etc) were deliberately included in the dish but the allergic person did not realise because:
a. they did not expect them to be there (they were an unusual ingredient in that dish - peanuts in a pesto sauce for example)
or.....
b. because they were wrongly told by the staff (who obviously did not know themselves) that the ingredient in question was not in the dish when in fact it was.
It is therefore vitally important for an allergic pupil, and their parents, to know that someone in every restaurant, cafe or dining hall really does know what is in the dishes that they serve and understands how important it is to give that allergic pupil correct information about the ingredients.
Accidental contamination
In a busy kitchen or restaurant the risk that non-allergic foods will get contaminated by potentially allergic foods is very high.
For example, if someone is filling a dish with peanuts it is very easy to get some peanut dust on their hands which could then be transferred to a totally different dish in which peanuts are not an ingredient.
Or, if the same serving spoon is used both to serve vegetables in a creamy sauce and vegetables to someone who cannot eat dairy products, the cream on the spoon may be transferred to the dairy product free vegetables.
You can see that it is therefore vitally important that food which is to be served to an allergic pupil is prepared by someone who is aware of the possible dangers. They must take every precaution to avoid contamination by washing their hands thoroughly before working with the non allergic ingredients, ensuring that the non allergic ingredients never come into contact with potentially allergic ingredients, and and by only using implements and dishes which they are sure have been washed thoroughly.