AIBU to feel disappointed at this restaurant's reaction to my complaint?

[Whatadrop]

DD has a food allergy.

Early December we went out for a family meal at a well known, chain, high street restaurant. I rang the venue before to let them know. We told them again when we arrived and told the waiter again when ordering her food.

On the way home from the meal DD suddenly fell unwell and it became apparent that she had consumed her allergy food during the meal. The food that was given to her was given to her in error and her allergen food had not been removed from the meal. DD was unwell for almost 10 days.

I emailed the chain immediately. It took them 6 days to respond. They said they would look into it. In the mean time I contacted the Food Agency to notify them. They said it wasn't their department and they did not deal with such situations and to instead told me to notify Trading Standards.

In the mean time I contacted the chain again for an update to which they responded they had notified Food Agency who were now investigating and they would let me know the outcome of that.

I, for some reason, feel unhappy and I can't put my finger on why. I feel they're perhaps not taking it seriously. It's now been almost a month since the incident.

people don't take caeliac as serious as it is sometimes due to the amount of people who are gluten free for a fad. I have 2 friends who are gluten free. They are not allergic. Have not been diagnosed. And its people like them that make it hard for others to take it seriously.

This with bells on and a bit on festive tinsel. When I was having anaphylactic reactions to stuff, I stopped eating almost everything except meat (almost impossible to react to meat apparently, bit of a bugger for vegetarians though). Certainly didn't even think of eating out. Lots of well meaning advice from people who 'get an upset tummy' or 'feel a bit odd' after eating certain foodstuffs, but hell I'll take that over an inability to breathe and death any day of the week. Everybody has allergies and 'intolerances' to everything now, it makes if difficult to weed out if life is at risk or if it's a self diagnosed faddy fusspot.

To be honest though, if you/dd or whoever reacts badly to anything, it's time to take a picnic to the restaurant. Nobody turned me away but this was 20 years ago when there was far fewer of us. Thankfully pregnancy was a miracle cure, but it's a bit extreme!

people don't take caeliac as serious as it is sometimes due to the amount of people who are gluten free for a fad. I have 2 friends who are gluten free. They are not allergic. Have not been diagnosed. And its people like them that make it hard for others to take it seriously.

But this is the fault of the restaurant, not the fault of the person choosing a gluten free meal. It shouldn't matter why they ask for it to be gluten free, that is what should be provided. If someone served a vegan some potatoes cooked in goose fat, would you say 'too bad, it's a food choice, not an allergy'? Of course not. If you order something gluten free because you have an allergy, or just because you are making a food choice, then that's what you should get.

Fair point about the time scale Kate.

I made it clear several times it was an actual food allergy. The waiting staff were very understanding so I can't help but wonder what went wrong and how the error came about.

Thank you for all responses. Sorry to those who've also suffered similar with food allergies and eating out. We'd not eaten out in almost a whole year. I just wanted to treat the DC to something nice. Lessons learned and all that

Night all.

I expect the company are being formal in the event of any legal action.

You made a complaint - they are dealing with it - what else do you expect them to do at this point?

Check out the freefrom eating out awards for places that make a huge effort to get this right. www.freefromeatingoutawards.co.uk/ I’ve worked for a couple of past winners and those menus are very carefully put together and checked and double checked to keep allergy sufferers safe.

popcorn. One of my friends is anaphylaxis allergic to a lot of foods. Did pregnancy really cure you for good? That's amazing.

Are youn 100% sure this reaction was caused by the restaurant food?

Why don’t you want to say the name of the chain? If this happened then they should be called out on it. Bad publicity will atop it happening again.

people don't take caeliac as serious as it is sometimes due to the amount of people who are gluten free for a fad. I have 2 friends who are gluten free. They are not allergic. Have not been diagnosed. And its people like them that make it hard for others to take it seriously.

There are many people who 'won't' eat something versus 'can't' eat something and I think it dilutes the seriousness of allergies in some people's minds.

Yanbu

I have an allergy to a certain ingredient.

Went to a chain ordered something but asked that this one thing not be included and explained why.... tucked into my food when I suddenly realised it had been left in! Thankfully I hadn't actually eaten it, I did complain and they made me a new one but barely apologetic. I wrote them an email and the manager offered me a bottle of wine when I next ate there to try and appease me. I don't drink wine and don't want to eat there again. All I wanted was for them to take it seriously but I don't think they did.

Recently went on holiday and went for a meal so a less known chain. Explained my allergy and they went above and beyond to try and help me find something suitable (didn't know that most their food was cooked with the thing I am allergic too)

Allergies should be taken seriously as they can be fatal. I have learnt to double and triple check and basically not order anything that as the ingredient in it or potentially on it.

Thanks for answering my question.

@NicoAndTheNiners

Since first pregnancy fourteen years ago I have not had an anaphylactic reaction, swollen lips, the big 'golf ball' lumps (can't remember the name), dermatographia (when you get weals from pressure), aquagenic urticaria (water 'burns'), 'poached egg eye (allergic conjunctivitis when the white of the eye swells) or dyshidrotic eczema (small fluid filled blisters on hands).

I do still get itchy eyes, sneeze a lot, get rashes, dyshidrotic blisters on the soles of my feet occasionally and wear gloves a lot to reduce contact dermatitis. Always carry allergy eye drops and anti-histamines and never far from an EpiPen. No longer have the epinephrine inhaler (adrenaline).

My immune system is -fucking weird- unusual and although the stopping of the major shit could just be coincidence, the immunologist told me that pregnancy (and breastfeeding) can be a bit of a 'reset' as such, as your body has to learn to tolerate an extreme 'foreign body' for an extended period.

Because of my issues, I was really careful feeding/weaning both ds. The first one was exclusively BF for six months, weaned on one new thing every three days, and BF until 14 months. No allergies at all. The second one (was 5 months PG when stopped feeding first) was again BF exclusively for 6 months, then reacted (rashes both ends) to absolutely shit loads when weaning - the no more than one new thing every three days make it really easy to identify which fruits, vegetables, eggs, chocolate etc that cause the issues. once again meat was fine. He's grown out of everything now, apart from a bit of a rash from tomato and he has eczema and asthma.

Allergies have moved on a lot. 15-20 years ago a lot of people hadn't heard of anaphylaxis and allergies were rare. No child under the age of 11 had died (their hearts cope better with the blood pressure drop). I don't know the stats of the last 20 years, people are more aware and cases are in the media, but it's too difficult to find reliable statistics now as there are too many agendas out there.

Sorry that this has turned into an epic essay, if the op can take away anything it's that allergies change over time. It might get better, it may get worse, it may be that you decide that taking a risk and eating out for a special event is worth a few days of possible upset stomach (massive assumption, but IME extreme allergic reactions are resolved quickly). Or try pregnancy

I want an explanation as to how it happened. I want to know what went wrong and what exactly they're going to do to ensure it'll not happen again.

Did you specifically ask for those things OP? Absolutely understandable you are unhappy. It’s shit that you made it so clear and they still made what sounds like a very careless error. But I used to respond to complaints and it’s really helpful if the complainer spells out what they want. Admittedly a good company should be aiming for exactly what you want (ensuring it doesn’t happen again) but it may be that they are, but that whoever’s dealing with it hasn’t prioritised keeping you up to date with the steps they’re considering, or whether there’s a delay ( for example if the decision makers are on holiday).

Hope you get some satisfaction, but if you didn’t set out clearly what you want to know, it might be worth getting back to them and spelling it out.

TruckLoad - read the OP. She states it was a high street chain. No need for you to even ask your question.

And given perfectly valid reasons for not making them and explained why she's not naming them!

I have 2 friends who are gluten free. They are not allergic. Have not been diagnosed. And its people like them that make it hard for others to take it seriously.

There isn't really a diagnosis for gluten intolerance though. Should everyone have to eat it when they don't want to? My DD has a coeliac test and it was negative. But gluten made her tummy swell up and sometimes she vomited. Guess I should have told her to suck it up.

Also, I'm hypothyroid and we are meant to avoid gluten.

Thanks for answering my question

This is mumsnet not mastermind.

Jeez truckload really no need for your passive aggressive face. The first line of the OP states it's a high street chain

We'd not eaten out in almost a whole year. I just wanted to treat the DC to something nice. Lessons learned and all that

You sound understandably bitter. When you phoned ahead, did they seem very reassuring and did you feel they were properly grasping the seriousness, or was it more of a casual “yes of course we do that” ?

I’m just wondering whether there might be a small local restaurant you could find that might really make an effort for you. If you live somewhere it’s an option, it might be worth phoning round and having an in depth conversation to see if there are any who properly understand and will genuinely work with you.

Is saying which high street chain a Mastermind level question?

Might go on Mastermind now. Sounds easy.

OP aside (which sounds awful by the way and I totally understand why you're so angry about it), why do people feel the need to have an opinion over someone else's dietary habits?

If you don't have an anaphylactic reaction to something but don't eat it because it doesn't agree with you, it has nothing to do with me, your neighbour, the woman in Tesco or anybody else. If you want to spend your money on gluten free food, knock yourself out - it's got nothing to do with me. If you don't eat milk today but tuck into a bailey's tonight, so what? It's your choice. If I cook you a gluten free meal and you have jam roly poly for pudding, fair enough, if it was that much effort to prepare food that you like / want to eat I wouldn't invite you round.

Maybe a new year's resolution for some people could be to wind their neck in?

You made a complaint - they are dealing with it - what else do you expect them to do at this point?

I would expect them to show a degree of urgency in dealing with an issue of this type. If one of their restaurants is operating unsafe practices, every day they waste messing around means that that restaurant is putting other customers in danger.

OP, generally I think you should definitely have expected a better reaction from the restaurant if this happened almost a month ago.

Chain restaurants normally have good processes in place for managing dietary issues, but obviously something went wrong here.

I think waiting 6 days for a response to your email is appalling. And yes, Christmas gets in the way, but that chain will have been trading throughout the Christmas period (making money off its customers) so I don't think that's an excuse.

I understand your reluctance to publicly name & shame them, but actually I think that's your best course of action - bad PR for them can work miracles. Social Media or your local paper. On here.

We have a coeliac in the family, and I know which chain restaurants we can trust to take it seriously and which we can't. And we are very, very careful if we eat an independent place.

To PPs, coeliac is not an allergy, it's an autoimmune disease. The OP said her daughter had a food allergy, which suggests it's something else.

Well in my case dailyshite. I had an ‘opinion’ because he made such a fuss; every day, every time it was a total song and dance about his severe allergy. He also got aggressive and abusive to staff on the transport there, at lunch and again at dinner about how his allergy needed catering for. But then downed large volumes of a drink that contained said allergen. Often at the same time as having his conniptions.

I know people who don’t eat varying things, some due to tentative reasons. I don’t ‘have an opinion’ because they don’t:

• pretend to have an allergy.
• get aggressive in their expectation about how others need to cater to their choice
• be hypocritical at the same time as doing the above two.

^ these things are usually what people ‘wind their necks out’ about.

Crap, mixed up two threads. Both about allergies. Dailyshite’s reply on this thread fitted in with the other thread, but my reply makes no sense on this one.

Sorry!

As you were ...