Food
Safety: Best Practices for Food
Allergies
By: Bob Tousey, FMP, MBA
Tousey Hospitality Group
Every
food service establishment needs to be concerned about customers who suffer
from food allergies.
Allergies
affect 1 in 25 Americans and 1 in 13 children.
There is no cure for food allergies and the only way to prevent a
reaction is strict avoidance.
This
a big concern for the food service industry because approximately 5 million
people with food allergies eat at a food establishment daily. The way your establishment manages food
allergies could determine if someone with a food allergy will eat there. Remember it takes only 1 person in a group
with a food allergy to affect the group’s decision where to dine.
This
post is not intended to be an exhaustive study on food allergy management but
to suggest ten best practices that you can put into place to keep your guests
safe.
Before
we discuss the best practices to follow it is important that we identify the
most common food allergens which are also known as the “Big Eight”. They are:
Dairy, Wheat, Tree Nuts, Eggs, Peanuts, Soy, Seafood, and Shellfish. Ingredients which contain or have been
exposed to these allergens are quite common. For this reason the first best practice is to always have
someone on duty with special training in allergens and who is knowledgeable
about all ingredients. The National Restaurant Association’s ServSafe
offers an excellent online training program that can be completed in a few
short hours and the last time I checked the cost was a reasonable $22.
Other
nine best practices include:
- · Having the server immediately notify the Chef or Kitchen Manager that an allergen free order is coming in to the kitchen;
- · For a Manager or Chef to verify with the guest exactly what the allergy is;
- · Having a separate deep fryer for preparing allergen free food (one that does not contain peanut oil and is not used to fry fish or any other allergen);
- · Having a separate toaster that wheat products or other allergens are not toasted in;
- · Maintain separate cooking tools for preparing allergen free meals (these should be stored separately and clearly marked and only used for allergen free meals);
- · Train staff that when preparing an allergen free meal on a flat grill to place aluminum foil on the grill in order to create a barrier between the food and the grill’s surface. By doing this the allergen free food will not come into contact with allergens which have been previously cooked on the grill;
- · Train staff to wash hands and change gloves prior to preparing an allergen free meal;
- · Clean and sanitize all food preparation surfaces that will be used for preparing an allergen free meal;
- · Once prepared place the allergen free meal on an identifiable plate (an inexpensive solution is to simply double plate all allergen free meals) then have the chef, manager or server deliver the allergen free meal separately from other meals and to then check back to make sure everything is satisfactory.
This
post would not be complete without a discussion of what to do if a guest has an
allergic reaction in your restaurant.
Even with the best safeguards this can happen. Remember that not all guests will alert you
to the allergy and even best practices and not perfect.
- · Make sure someone stays with the guest;
- · Find out any pertinent information that will be needed by emergency personnel (type of allergy, any medication administered, etc.)
- · Have someone call “911”;
- · Have someone wait for emergency personnel and direct them to the guest;
- · After the incident meet with all staff involved and critique the incident to determine if similar incidents can be prevented in the future and if you can manage them better if they do occur.
