Ice cream cafe has given my daughter a dairy free ice cream.. with dairy in it. Livid!

[Cleothelabrador]

Hello
I don't think I'm being unreasonable, just posting here for traffic.
My daughter is 5, has a dairy allergy and reacts badly when she has even very small amount.
We've just been for ice cream where I did the usual cone/ice cream ingredients check & repeated about 3 times that she can't have dairy. As I always do. Especially as this happened at a different cafe before.
I used to ask for ingredients but it all felt a bit neurotic & I stopped. I'll start again now.
They put some sprinkles on the top which I didn't see & my daughter told me about after severe sore throat, tummy ache, sore skin & swollen eye... I asked for the ingredients of the ice cream and they told me & stated no dairy so it was almost def the sprinkles. We left and then ran into the manager later on & I told him what had happened & he agreed the sprinkles have dairy in.
We swapped phone numbers.
Last time I reported to trading standards and never went there again.
This time I know I should do the same but it doesn't seem enough.
My daughter is now asleep.
Her whole day has been ruined and that's so unfair. Also potentially tomorrow, a day she has been looking forward for weeks, & have pre-paid for an expensive day out & taken the day off work. WWYD?
For so many, dairy can be fatal.
Why do so many places get away with this?

Trading standards are there to ensure that trading standards are met. It is the law to highlight all of the top 5 allergies and if you are serving something as dairy free that includes cross contamination.

BumpowderSneezeonAndSnot I never assume anything is okay for my allergic DC to eat unless we’ve checked a label or checked with the staff. The staff should legal know or be able to find out. Idea we aten’t Confident they are sure we go else where.

We have allergies in our family.
In our experience, chains aren't better with allergies. Tbh you can't afford to be complacent anywhere especially when your DD has such a strong reaction.

You are right op, it should never have happened, as it is obvious to the server that your dd has allergies, she should never have added sprinkles without checking first. Why should op dd not have ice cream, just because she has a dairy allergies . It could have been fatal.

It. was. not. the. sprinkles.

Why bother?

My son has numerous allergies including cmp, soya , egg gluten...i could go on. He has an epi pen so some of them are severe. If they are not old enough to know properly the onus is on you as a parent. If it's that severe am allergy why take her somewhere that tjere was a chance she could get sick? You csnt put your hope in servers to fully understand each customers severity of allergy

Some sprinkles do contain milk so it could have been those. Although with th manager saying they will now get a separate scoop for the diary free ice cream it doesn’t sound like they have no idea about contamination.

Why is my daughter not supposed to have chocolate? She has it all the time.
Loads of products contain chocolate without the milk.

Majority of chocolate products are milk chocolate though so will contain milk. Most white chocolate contains milk solids and milk has been found in some dark chocolate which may even state 'dairy-free'
If you daughter doesn't know the difference I think this could be quite dangerous for her if her allergy is bad that cross contamination is making her unwell.

This was my thought too when the OP asked why her daughter shouldn't have chocolate. Yes, things like bars of 70% cocoa dark chocolate, or bars labelled as dairy free should be free of milk, but many other chocolate products or products containing chocolate will contain milk chocolate, not dark. A close friend's daughter is allergic to dairy and knows very well that she can't just have any old bar of chocolate, nor most things with chocolate in.

If your daughter is aware that she can only have bars of plain/dark chocolate, and to check the ingredients of any chocolate containing products, then great, and I apologise for pointing it out. If not, please do make sure she knows.

My DS has a severe nut allergy and I am very careful to check everything. The strangest thing I have seen with may contain nuts on was a packet of bean sprouts

Ime, a big problem is chefs/kitchen staff adding on things that aren’t explicitly mentioned on the menu.
The following are examples served to me recently from the Gluten Free menu choices (and I always make sure the server knows I’m GF).

A deep fried, battered, onion ring placed directly on top of my steak as part of a garnish not mentioned in the menu.

Boiled barley (or rye) grains scattered artistically over my roast veg selection.

Gluten bread rolls with my gluten free meal.

A small decorative haggis served with my gluten free meal.

A pot of gluten containing garlic dip with my gf pizza.

Those examples were easy to spot and easy to query- but I’ve been made sick so many times when eating out, presumably by sauces or dressings that have been used accidentally instead of the gf ones.
My go to these days (unless I’m very sure of the venue), is Steak, no sauce, with salad, no dressing

A small decorative haggis served with my gluten free meal.

What?!

A small decorative haggis

Now that's worthy of its own thread.

memorial beach
My daughter is fully aware of what chocolate products she can have
There are actually loads of dairy free chocolate biscuits (inc Oreos, Mrs crimbles chocolate macaroons, bourbons many more....) Free from chocolate cakes and brownies in every big supermarket, chocolate bars (brand called Moo free as well as loads of others) chocolate ice cream in Aldi & Sainsbury's...
There's a lot out there.

While I'd agree that some servers don't care, I think the main responsibility here lies with the company producing the food or ingredients and the company serving the food to ensure that things are labelled properly and clearly, and staff are adequately trained. I'm not, have never received ANY allergy training, despite my place of work bigging up allergy menu's and especially gluten free (also vegan and vegetarian) I rely on the packet labelling and google - because I don't always understand the names of the ingredients on the packet I'll google them to see - which really really slows down service! The chef's are good, and I've picked up a lot from them however they're not always there and I have to serve pre made or pre bought snacks. When I've brought up lack of training in this area there's a lot of promises but no action, and knowing hospitality as I do there won't be until someone gets very ill and the company are sued. Then of course the person who served the food will be the scapegoat.
Lack of knowledge and training is the main issue rather than lack of care.

My daughter is fully aware of what chocolate products she can have
There are actually loads of dairy free chocolate biscuits (inc Oreos, Mrs crimbles chocolate macaroons, bourbons many more....) Free from chocolate cakes and brownies in every big supermarket, chocolate bars (brand called Moo free as well as loads of others) chocolate ice cream in Aldi & Sainsbury's...
There's a lot out there.

I'm not disputing there are chocolate stuff out there that doesn't contain milk.
I'm questioning if your daughter knows the difference. If your daughter relates chocolate to the chocolate she is allowed then this could be dangerous for her.
Getting her to question what she is eating is never a bad thing, I'm sure she knows the consequences.

Apologies OP, from the way it was phrased, I wasn't clear whether you meant that there are lots of chocolate/chocolate containing items which are specifically made to be dairy free (which I agree there are, way more than there used to be), or that lots of chocolate containing items contain dark chocolate rather than milk chocolate.

Biscuits is an odd one, as I wouldn't personally class a bourbon as a chocolate biscuit, it has cocoa powder in it, but it isn't coated in chocolate like a chocolate digestive, nor does it contain chocolate chips. But it does taste of chocolate.

My 20 month old twins are allergic to dairy. A couple of months ago I bought them their first ever coconut yoghurt and they loved it, until the reaction started. My son’s first proper word was “no no no” which is what he screamed at me while I tried to clean his bum.

A couple of days later I found the company had issued a recall after their yoghurts were found to be contaminated with dairy. I was so furious but couldn’t do anything other than complain. Could have been so much worse.

I’m so sorry your DD has had to go through this, and you.

I love how women are so supportive, from: you took your daughter to an ice cream parlour when she can't have dairy, to one that I've forgotten but triggered me to post this.

I'm allergic to ice cream / dairy stuffs. I know the reaction and yes hands up it is stupid of me to go yay ice cream in any circumstances. I learnt my lesson after having an ice cream and being really quite ill.

So yes ok the onus is on the person who knows about a sensitivity / allergy. But if you're at a place that caters for such sensitivities, they are advised I need a dairy free icecream, then the onus is on the manager to thoroughly train staff and to emphasise the dangers of cross contamination. I would go as far as a manager to even colour code stuff to make staff 100% aware.

So on sprinkles, ones with dairy, red label all the way round. Ones dairy free, green label all the way around.

You don't want to be in the paper as someone died in your shop on your day off as the staff made a balls up.

Some will say it's just tough luck, allergic to dairy, no icecream for you. But we're not in the 1970's!

So yes ok the onus is on the person who knows about a sensitivity / allergy. But if you're at a place that caters for such sensitivities, they are advised I need a dairy free icecream, then the onus is on the manager to thoroughly train staff and to emphasise the dangers of cross contamination

Well yeah, in theory. But when your kid has a serious allergy, you never ever hand over the responsibility like that because of what they theoretically should do or should know. The onus always remains with you. Yes it sucks but thats how it is.

My dd has a peanut allergy. There are some kinds of restaurants that it's just too risky for her to go to. The onus is on me to be completely obsessive about checking. In an ice cream shop, the risk of cross contamination is huge, particularly if its a shop which serves scoops from big tubs. If peanuts are in any product in the shop, I do let her have anything. It's rubbish for her, but anything else is asking for trouble.

Op I'm sorry your dc had such a horrid experience. Lollies, wrapped up in the factory and labeled, will be your best option in the future..

Ann and Martha, “small decorative haggis” sounded better than “haggis ball”

Beer, I agree with your post- servers/chefs aren’t adding ingredients/making mistakes for badness, they just don’t have an awareness of the issues- and I bet many of us wouldn’t either, if it weren’t for out personal circumstances.

It’s probably fair to say that few people, other than label-hawks (I read every single label of anything I buy!), are aware of how many foodstuffs are contaminated with whatever we are trying to avoid (be it gluten/wheat/nuts/milk...).

Many will have no concept of how dangerous minor ingredients added to a “safe” meal- salad dressing, or spice mix or stock cube etc might be... been poisoned a few times by well intentioned family that way too!

Also servers are used to people quizzing them about gluten free bread and being arsey about it, and then ordering a dirty big cake after 3 glasses of wine!

You’re right, the “to hell with it, I’m going to have that slice of cake” brigade aren’t helping anyone, least of all themselves