new EU Allergy regs for caterers come in to effect this december..

[leekandpotato]

are you aware this is happening?

I am very hopeful that these regulations will improve our eating out choices as a family and for my 2 food allergic teenagers!

[greenbananas]

Yes, this is great news!!

However, I do so wish that the regulations had gone further and required caterers to provide a complete list of ingredients.

My DS1 is allergic to a fair few of the 14 that are required to be listed, but is also highly allergic to peas, lentils, beans, bananas, kiwi and a few other things - none of which are 'notifiable'... so things won't change much for us really.

Also, I wonder about the risk of cross-contamination. Are there any regulations about preventing this? Or is it only the actual ingredients which are covered?

We are skint and only eat in supermarket / shopping centre cafes. Last week, DS1 had a reaction to some carrots, because a pea had fallen into the carrots. He didn't eat the pea, just a carrot that it had been touching.

Sometimes, cafe staff use the same spoons for different things (for example, a buttered veg. spoon might be dipped into the chips which are 'safe'). Staff are sort of trained not to do this, but are not made fully aware of what could happen to people with allergies if they forget.

These regulations are great, but we still have a long way to go.

We often use McDonalds in emergencies - they are amazing, wonderfully informative, separate machines for everything and a full ingredients list on request (never thought I would be taking my children to McDonalds )

[Hazelwhirls]

We (Anaphylaxis Campaign) worked really hard to get full ingredients required to no avail. However there is other old law which continues to require a food business to sell 'food of the substance demanded'. If you advise a business that you need to avoid a particular ingredient and they serve/sell it, they can commit an offence which is more serious than the Food Information Regulation offences with much greater penalties. My allergytraining courses include the most common other foods people need to avoid in the UK - eg kiwi, banana, legumes - peas, beans, lentils etc....
FSA study underway to see how people are coping now and will be repeated in two years to see if new law working well enough?