HOSPITALITY
MANAGING ALLERGENS
People with food allergies have to take great care when eating out to avoid certain foods that could cause them harm. As a business you have a legal obligation to ensure that any food you produce or prepare is safe. This is so they can make an informed choice about what to eat. You have a legal obligation to provide information to consumers on the allergens that are in the food that you supply.
We help you to scrutinise your menu dishes to identify where allergens exist. We also document how you can control food delivery, preparation processes and storage of foods that contain allergens.
Finally we show you how to manage food order taking and serving customers with food allergies and train your staff in allergen awareness, food labelling, preparation and cooking.
YOUR RESPONSIBILITIES
It is no longer enough for businesses to say that they do not know whether or not a food contains an allergen and nor is it enough to say that all their foods may contain allergens. Allergen information must be specific to the food, complete and accurate.
As a food business operator you cannot refuse to provide specific allergen information on foods served. You also cannot give incorrect or misleading information on a menu or through verbal communication. This is a criminal offence under the Food Information Regulations 2014, punishable by an unlimited fine.
CROSS-CONTAMINATION
Most kitchens do not have the luxury to be able to completely separate food preparation where allergens are involved. So it's really important that your kitchen staff know how to clean-down and make prep are areas hygienic for use when you get allergen alerts on orders. We advise you on best practice to ensure that you take every precaution to safeguard your customers.
ALLERGEN DOCUMENTATION
We go through all of your menus and scrutinise all the dishes and their recipes in order to identify allergens present. Then these have to be recorded in documents that can be made available to customers upon request and/or to the EHO inspector.
If your suppliers substitute goods on delivery, these must also be examined and either recorded in the same way or rejected.
