Watchdog just now...allergy information given out by top high street food chains is garbage.

[shadypines]

No surprise really. Most well known coffee shops and fast food places eg Frankie and Benny's , Costa are giving out duff info when questioned by the undercover customer who has the potentially deadly allergy. Only Pizza Express was found to give out the correct information.

And I can't say I was too impressed with the FSA woman at the end of the piece who came over as slightly lethargic on the matter. She says it's up to Michael Gove to improve the food labelling standards and he's going to report on it in December.

That is really shocking. There needs to be a big change of labelling before more people die.

Correct Strawberry, it's been a long time coming. I think another big thing is for staff to be properly trained on allergies as they are obviously not at the moment.

Thing is, even if the included ingredients are correctly listed, there is still a risk of cross contamination in kitchens with haphazard processes. I have had reactions to 'safe' foods, presumably where my allergen was prepared in the same chopping board or a serving spoon was dipped into multiple dishes.

I think it would be great to combine food labelling improvements with food preparation training, to help make all workers in the chaim more allergy aware.

Yeah I agree it's not just the labelling it's cross contamination as well. There needs to be a big shake up where this is concerned.

Michael Gove had better come up trumps next month with a plan to shake things up!

Agreed. I am always on edge when we eat out, never sure if my meal is safe. It's a minefield. If people appear clueless or don't know where to find answers, when we are ordering and can't answer questions I won't eat I end up with a coffee.