Pub chef refusing to cook for allergies

[Allergyissue87]

Very odd experience yesterday, my son has a nut allergy and we eat out once or twice a month. Generally we get shown an allergy folder or directed to an app to check and given a quick warning about cross contamination and all fine. I know the level of his allergy and am happy to take a small risk of cross contamination etc, otherwise he could never have a meal out.
Yesterday we went to a chain pub, have been before with no issues, asked if we had any allergies, told the woman at the till yes a nut allergy, we've checked the allergen info and happy with risk of cross of contamination etc. All fine, ordered, paid and sat down with our drinks.
Then about 20 minutes later a chef came to the table to tell us he can't cook for us as there is an allergy and our order shouldnt have been taken. I was really confused, wondered if it was a new chef etc, I explained I'd checked the allergy info on their website, it doesn't contain any allergens and I'm aware of the small possibility of cross contamination but not an issue for his level of allergy, and he's eaten it before and all fine. But no, he was adamant he cannot serve food due to this allergy, he was apparently the kitchen manager and would not risk making a child ill, couldn't explain further than that and went back to the kitchen.
I went back up to the bar and asked for the manager, a young assistant manager gave me a full refund and apologised but still couldn't give me a real explanation.

I'll most likely complain through their online form as we wasted about an hour by the time we had got our refund and left, with 2 hungry children, and my son who now doesn't want to eat anything not homemade as 'the man said I'll get ill'.
Am I being unreasonable to expect to be served?

To clarify if my son ate a nut, or something containing nuts he would be unwell and need an epipen, but has been fine with previous incidents of his food touching nut-containing food etc and there wasn't actually anything containing nuts on the pub menu.

This! People just don’t get it. What if shops took the same line as restaurants? This lasagne is nut free, but I’m not going to let you buy it “just in case”.

When the FSA brought in allergy warnings years ago, manufacturers would use the phrase ‘May contain traces of nuts’ on literally everything as an arse-covering exercise. Allergy sufferers could buy next to nothing and their diet was even more restrictive than before! They were then forced by the FSA to sort their shit out, and things are much better now. It’s their legal responsibility to make efforts to ensure products are not contaminated.

It is a legal obligation for establishments to display ACCURATE allergen information. If they suddenly change suppliers and use a nut-contaminated product, and they don’t change their allergen guides before serving that food, they are breaking the law. They can’t just flout the law and refuse to serve allergy sufferers because they’ve not stuck to their legal obligations.

People on here seem to think people with allergies should never eat out, or work away, or go on holiday ever.

You should be taken at your word that you are fine to eat these foods. The chef was covering their own back and they should have got you to sign a disclaimer.

Why do people keep saying this? The op isn't the one with the allergy, it's her son.
Also the arrogance of 'you MUST serve this food which could have traces of something ive just announced an allergy to'!

That is so confusing!
You do often hear that each reaction is worse than the last, but on closer investigation it appears not to be true. This article says there's no evidence to support that for example
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6317446/

Well, quite.

Plenty of us with severe anaphylaxis-inducing allergies who carry epipens have managed to live until we're quite old without getting hospitalised all the time, and our lived experience is getting completely ignored.

I do worry about some of the people on this thread who have taken a very extreme attitude towards living with allergies and are clearly exhausting themselves and their families. Perhaps when allergies are diagnosed these days the consultants aren't taking the time to advise on how they are supposed to deal with that.

Also from this article -
Estimating the risk of severe reactions is one of the most significant knowledge gaps in managing people with food allergy. Near-fatal and fatal anaphylaxis to food are rare...However, such severe reactions are unpredictable. Most people who die from fatal food-anaphylaxis only have a history of previous mild reactions. Our inability to identify those at greater risk of severe reactions means that people with food allergy are often managed as being at equal risk of fatal reactions.

So not everyone has the same risk, but the oroblem is it's very hard at the moment to predict who's who. I know scientists are trying to develop biomarkers to help identify those more at risk of severe reactions.

We do eat out by the way, we just try to be very careful. You can't lock yourself or your child away either.

Sorry, forgot to add link
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/all.15318

@Allergyissue87

dont blame the chef atall

Basically

• to those who say allergic reactions get worse each time - there appears to be no evidence for that. It is possible the next reaction will be more severe, but also possible it may not be.
• to those who have only had mild reactions so far and therefore think their allergy is mild - you could be right, but you could also be wrong. Severe reactions are unpredictable. Just because your last reaction was mild does not necessarily mean the next one will be.

I think we just have to be as careful as possible while trying to live as normally as possible...if that makes any sort of sense at all. Fatal reactions are rare.

Since a landmark case and 'natasha's law' food providers need a more robust process for identification and management of allergy. If they have an allergy notice/disclaimer, it shows they have a process but I suspect this chef was not familiar or confident with it so went 'safety mode' and refused to serve altogether. Or else he was covering for something? It's not routine, and poor customer service. There's a lot of fear around allergy but actually if there's a robust process and governance followed it's very straightforward and they won't be prosecuted.

I would email them to ask for an explanation to help you and them understand and reassure your son that it's a little more complicated but won't always mean he can't eat out

To prove what?

A severe allergy can be considered a disability according to UK law, given the profound impact it can have on your day-to-day life. An allergy isn't necessarily a disability, but it can be - you need to consider it on a case-by-case basis. You won't find a piece of statute that neatly lists out which medical conditions are disabilities and which aren't because it doesn't exist.

Any restaurant can decide to refuse service for a non-discriminatory reason, which could be as simple as not liking a customer. Refusing to serve a customer for having a severe allergy because you don't want to cater for people with severe allergies? No. It would be different if you knew the kitchen was unsafe. It's not about denying service, it's about the reason for it.

I wouldn't expect Five Guys to be able to serve me anything as they openly cook with peanut oil, and it's not reasonable to expect them to feed me anything that won't kill me. In their case, if I was dumb enough to try to order food there and they told me they wouldn't serve me, their decision would be sensible and not based on a discriminatory reason.

But a pub that doesn't have nuts in any dish on the menu and doesn't handle nuts in the kitchen...? There's something going on there.

Give over. Refusing based on physical disability causes hurt & inconvenience. Refusing based on allergy (assuming the processes are inadequate or contamination has occurred) prevents potential death.

If people are taking an extreme attitude it's because we are scared of doing it wrong. I won't cook anything from scratch for anyone with an allergy. I'll buy shop bought labelled stuff to be safe. It's because from what I hear, it's so easy to have cross contamination and my kitchen has nuts and dairy and I am not sure what I need to do to make my food safe for people with either nut or dairy allergies. I felt safer to buy the child a something from the shop.

It's different from vegans or halal. There's no fear of cross contanimation. I will clean my pots and chopping board that I have used for meat. I think it's the idea that no one life's in danger that makes me feel much more at ease.

https://go.skimresources.com?id=470X1716091&xs=1&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fsociety%2F2024%2Fjan%2F08%2Fman-with-peanut-allergy-died-after-slice-of-pizza-inquest-in-newcastle-hears&sref=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mumsnet.com%2Ftalk%2Famiibeingunreasonable%2F4979617-pub-chef-refusing-to-cook-for-allergies%3Freply%3D132081187

Very sad reading this - seems an unusual choice for pizza is allergy to nuts

Stomach had nuts in it

She said analysis had showed that there had been a “significant amount of peanuts” in the food and there was a “strong suggestion” that there were peanuts in the contents of his stomach.

Where was the Epi pen. He asked for it but was no sign of one

A tragic accident but if he has had an epi oen he may have been alive today

@Blondeshavemorefun That's the kind of thing I'm scared of if I have to cater for anyone with a severe allergy. On the face of it, none of the things he ordered should have peanuts
Atkinson had searched the internet for likely ingredients in certain foods and they ended up ordering chips, chicken tikka masala pizza, onion bhajis, sag aloo and two meat curry dishes.

However stories like these keep appearing in the papers. I can never be certain that there's no cross contemination.

@ReadyForPumpkins it's scary

They're the sort of thing you're advised against eating if you have certain allergies. Poor young man 😔

This was my thought when I saw the list too. It took me years to be brave enough to eat Indian food. I am wondering if the comma has been put in the wrong place in that list because it reads that it was a chicken tikka masala pizza but should there be a comma after masala instead. If it was a chicken tikka masala pizza then it wasn’t the wisest of pizza choices. Also, might sound callous but did he really only eat the pizza or did he try one of the other dishes. Sadly, the young do take risks. The worst reaction I ever had was when I was 19 on holiday with my friends. I ate one mouthful of a Bakewell tart which I didn’t realise had almonds in it. I blew up like a balloon, luckily I didn’t have breathing problems but my throat did swell up. It took over a week for me to look normal again. My parents had taught me not to eat something if I didn’t know what was in it but in a moment of madness I did. This is why it is worrying that restaurants are starting this trend of refusing service to allergy sufferers. It just makes it more likely that people will not disclose instead. Like I said previously I don’t disclose any more but I am 52 not 18. I also worry that parents who do not teach their children about living with their allergies and never allow eating out in any form be it restaurants, weddings , parties because it is deemed too risky are likely to end up with young adults who take risks.

The other thing was the article said he searched up likely ingredients of the dishes. It does not say he specifically looked at the allergens present in the dishes from the establishment he was ordering from.

Often when we read of these tragic deaths, they’ve died after eating from takeaways or small, independent cafés. We were advised at allergy clinic to never eat Indian/Chinese/Thai etc (unless we make it ourselves). DS always sticks to Dominos/McDonalds/KFC etc if he has a takeaway, because they’re generally nut free and their allergens are clearly displayed. Takeaways can be really high risk.

I read a bit more about this tragic case.
He only ate some pizza and knew within 30 seconds something was wrong. It was a chicken masala pizza. His parents think peanut powder may have been substituted for a regular/usual ingredient when making it? He had looked up usual ingredients on his phone but, as a pp said, I think this may have been in a general sense, I'm not sure though.

He didn't mention his allergies on the app or to the restaurant ( apparently the app advises this but his flatmate can't remember if they saw the warning or not).

The flatmates couldn't find the epipen and he was unable to direct them, either because he was too unwell or couldn't remember its location, they're not sure.

Such a tragedy. I'm sorry for talking about it, it seems disrespectful, but don't want to ignore just in case anything about it might help anyone on here. It's the nightmare, isn't it.

It's good to talk to help this. Or happen again

So anytime who has an allergy /epi pen

Do you friends and family know where it is

Ladies often have in handbags so out with them if out

But men don't have bags usually

Sadly I find with many of the deaths there’s a catalogue of things that could have been done differently and why we have to teach our kids to live with allergies and manage their risk, not run away and never expose them. Else things could go very wrong in early adulthood, when people do naturally take more risks than other times of life. It’s just so sad when these risks have this impact.

My dad is allergic to wasps

Been stung maybe 3 times and each one a worse reaction and told if happened again could be fatal

I know he has an epi pen. Well a few

One is in his bag he carries if out /I know is at home by stairs

Also should be one in his car glovebox

I have sadly seen a couple of fatal incidents with young men where they have not been carrying their epi pens - one was on holiday I think and was never going to get it from the hotel in time.

I actually think the chef was being responsible for the safety of his customers. His kitchen his rules.