Near miss reporting – an essential element of allergen control
Natasha’s Law is now in force. We spoke to Caroline Benjamin at Food Allergy Aware about how hospitality businesses are coping with the change, the worrying shortcuts that some operators are taking and the fundamental importance of near miss reporting for the industry and its customers.
Beyond Natasha’s Law
Natasha’s law was implemented on Friday 1 October, it became law that any food business preparing food on their premises and pre-packaging to sell onto their customers shall have to add a label with full ingredient list. These foods are classed as PrePacked for Direct Sales [PPDS]Both myself and Jacqui McPeake as part of Hospitality Allergen Support UK have been running workshops and presenting tirelessly to hospitality, consultants and local authorities to get the message out there to ensure businesses fully understand their responsibilities. Where there are anomalies, we have searched out the solutions to ensure the law is adhered to.
Why was the law introduced?
The legislation was introduced to help the Food Hypersensitive Customer [FHS] make an informed decision when purchasing Grab and Go type foods [PPDS] after the tragic death of Natasha Ednan-Laperouse purchasing an unlabelled baguette containing sesame flour baked into the bread at a Pret a Manger site.
Pret were not breaking the law, they had signposting available to ask for more information, however this was not adequate. At the inquest, the Coroner highlighted that at least 6 families had highlighted this potential problem to Pret, either on social media, face 2 face or via customer services. Unfortunately, in 2016 Pret did not have a system in place to report potential issues Near Misses. Had there been had a reporting system in place to capture these potential issues, they could have reviewed, monitored a trend and conducted Root Cause Analysis and maybe could have prevented Natasha’s tragic death.
The importance of Near Miss Reporting
We are keen for the Hospitality industry to capture and monitor Near Miss Reporting within their business, 1 in 90 near misses results in accident, sometime fatal and as an industry we need to do more to capture potential incidence and share best practice. Food Allergy Aware and Jacs Allergen Management are spearheading a campaign in early 2022, if you would like to be a part of the Near Miss Reporting campaign and share your best practice or you feel you need to do more, please get in contact and we will send information on how you can engage and share the best practice.
How are businesses managing the new legislation?
Larger businesses were prepared and had adapted their systems well in advance of the 1 October deadline, but the smaller independent businesses are struggling to implement due to limited resources, budget and lack of staffing in the current climate.
Some businesses have changed their previous service methods to ensure that labelling is not required as a solution. In these cases, the FIR loose foods regulations apply, and information still needs to be readily available.
Both Jacqui & I are finding since Covid, that some hospitality businesses including take-aways are turning away the FHS customer stating “that due to the pandemic” they are unable to serve customers with allergies. Some operators are even asking FHS customers to sign disclaimers before serving them. Businesses should be aware that these type of disclaimers are not valid in a court of law!
We are also seeing a number of businesses limiting their menus, or stating they are no longer able to serve the FHS customer due to Natasha’s Law, even though they do not serve PPDS foods within their business. It’s really important to that ensure that your staff are trained and that they are quoting the correct food allergen law or internal policy when they are making statements to customers. The FHS customer is very knowledgable and understands which laws will affect them!
What next for allergen management and legislation?
Owens Law has come about after the tragic death of Owen Carey who purchased a burger from Bryon Burger in 2017, coated in Buttermilk, when he informed them of his allergies including milk. The family of Owen Carey set up an online petition to get the Government to sit up and take notice of the gaps in Allergen Management within the hospitality sector, the petition gained over 10,000 signatures. DEFRA has responded and currently the FSA are conducting a consultation which will include contacting the FHS customer and the hospitality industry for their input on appropriate solutions.
What is Owen’s Law asking for?
You can find a summary of key points listed below, the full list is here.
The aim is for restaurants to put more appropriate and accurate information about the allergens in their food. This should be on the face of the main menu and in a detailed allergy matrix. This will then give customers full visibility on what they are ordering.
- This should be in the form of standardised symbols representing the fourteen major allergens. The symbols should be printed by each dish on the face of the menu.
- A breakdown of each dish with the full ingredient list of each component should be listed in the allergy matrix. If they fail to do so, it will be an offence.
- Better training for waiting staff, especially in fast food and high staff turnover environments
- Thorough and certified allergy and first aid training (by a registered charity?) at least for the Duty Manager. Other more junior staff can refer to Duty Manager for advice..
Restaurants should be obliged to initiate a discussion with customers about allergies on all occasions, rather than customers asking.
- All servers to positively ask each customer if they suffer from any allergies.
- All servers have to read out the food order and
- dietary requirements with the customer before submitting it to the kitchen.
- Duty Managers obliged to directly supervise this process where allergies are present. It will be an offence if they fail to do so.
How will this affect Hospitality?
Dependent on the outcome of the consultations, food businesses may need to engage more proactively with the FHS customer. This will ensure more in-depth allergen training in the same way that food safety training is required currently.
FSA’s forum for FHS customers to report near misses
The FSA have also started to ask the FHS customers inform them about near misses. This near miss reporting tool is running from November to February 2022. FHS customers can report online, but they don’t have to provide details of the venue where the incident took place. The aim is to monitor and understand the number and type of incidents which are occurring. By understanding the causes, recommendations can be made to avoid serious incidents in the future. Find out more here.
If you need guidance or would like to review your process, please get in contact for a free 20-minute call.
Caroline Benjamin – FoodAllergyAware.co.uk | 07732637292
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