New guidance places the onus on businesses to provide written allergen information to people when eating outside of the home. Nick Hughes considers the implications.
Allergen information in pubs, restaurants, cafés and other out of home settings should ideally be provided both in writing and verbally, in a proposed evolution of the current system.
The Food Standards Agency (FSA) is currently consulting on new best practice guidance for non-prepacked foods sold in England, Wales and Northern Ireland which would create an expectation for customers to have access to both written allergen information and a conversation with staff when eating outside of the home.
On announcing the consultation earlier this month, FSA director of policy Rachel Sudworth stressed the importance of ensuring the new proposals “will work for everyone”, including businesses and those with food hypersensitivity. Stakeholders have until November 27th to respond to the Agency’s proposals.
The proposed guidance is voluntary and does not represent a change to the law, which still requires for allergen information to be provided either verbally or in writing, with the precise method left to the discretion of the individual business. But it will set a new benchmark for businesses who want to be seen to be doing the right thing by food hypersensitive customers.
The shift in FSA policy marks another small victory for campaigners who have called for greater emphasis to be placed on written allergen information. They include the family of Owen Carey who lost his life in 2017 after suffering an anaphylactic reaction to a chicken burger purchased from a branch of Byron Burger. The menu did not mention that the chicken was marinated in buttermilk.
Full ingredient information, including allergens, has been a legal requirement for prepacked foods sold for direct sale since October 2021 under ‘Natasha’s Law’. Campaigners now want to see the UK government go a step further and mandate the provision of written information for non-prepacked foods that make up the vast majority of meals sold in hospitality venues.
When the FSA board discussed the matter at its December 2023 board meeting, members unanimously agreed that legislation was the right way forward. Only the government has the power to bring forward that legislation; following the meeting FSA chair Susan Jebb wrote to ministers in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, as well as her counterpart at Food Standards Scotland, to discuss the board’s decision in the hope that policy could be harmonised across the four nations.
The new voluntary guidance will plug the gap while ministers continue to weigh up the case for mandatory rules. It will apply to England, Wales and Northern Ireland (Scotland sets its own policy) and has been developed following engagement with over 60 local authorities, over 100 businesses and various trade bodies across the three nations.
Yet the FSA’s own research suggests the new guidelines won’t be easy for businesses to meet. Nor is the provision of written information guaranteed to improve outcomes for consumers amid a scarcity of data on what is the best approach to communicating allergens in an out of home setting.
So what is the FSA proposing and what are the implications for businesses?
Millions impacted
Landing on the right allergens policy is a big responsibility for the FSA given the impact both on businesses and customers. Results from the FSA-commissioned PAFA (Patterns and prevalence of adult food allergy) project, published in May, found that more than 30% of UK adults reported some types of adverse reactions when eating food. When this figure was interrogated further through a clinical assessment, it was found that around 6% of the UK adult population is estimated to have a clinically confirmed food allergy, which equates to around 2.4 million adults.
Previous FSA research found that people with food hypersensitivity would like greater standardisation of allergen information when eating out of home and have a general preference for written information so they can make autonomous decisions and have a normal eating out experience.
Adding an additional layer to allergen labelling law wouldn’t come cheap, however. The FSA has estimated the total cost to businesses of making written information a legal requirement to be £250m, including £17.7m for one-off transitional costs, £223.7m familiarisation costs, and annual labelling costs of £13.5m. Local authorities would also face over £3m in costs relating to administration and enforcement.
Cash-strapped sector
Even in the absence of legislation, the bill for businesses seeking to comply with the new voluntary best practice guidance will be significant. It comes at a time when already cash-strapped businesses (and councils) are bracing themselves for a budget statement in which the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, is expected to look to corporations to plug the hole in the public finances through a possible rise in national insurance contributions and other revenue raising measures.
In a further blow to the hospitality sector, business rate bills are set to quadruple in April if relief that originated during the covid-19 pandemic ends, as is widely expected. Last week, the CEOs of businesses including Fuller’s, Greene King, Burger King and Caffè Nero warned in an open letter to the chancellor that inaction would cost the sector £914m in additional rates bills. They urged the government to introduce a new lower, permanent and universal business rates multiplier (used to calculate the annual bill for a property) for the hospitality sector, to be adopted across all nations of the UK.
The letter was coordinated by UKHospitality which has previously warned of the challenges in mandating written allergen information for the out of home sector. Following the publication of the original FSA proposals in December, chief executive Kate Nicholls pointed to “the ever-changing nature of menu items and ingredients used” as a reason why “it’s often the case that blanket policies lack the nuance needed to deliver effective allergen management”.
Flexible format
The proposed best practice guidance states that food businesses are free to choose the format of the written allergen information that best suits their business model and allows them to keep the information accurate and up-to-date.
Written allergen information should, however, be readily available without consumers having to ask for it by being displayed on the main menu, for example, or in an allergen booklet located on a counter, or a matrix displayed on a wall in an accessible area.
Businesses that change their menu or allergen information more regularly can make the information available upon request in a separate document so they can more easily update and control it, however a clear message on the menu should inform consumers where this document can be found.
Those businesses selling non-prepacked food online or by telephone are advised to make written allergen information available to the customer before the food is ordered as well as at the point of delivery by, for example, placing stickers on food containers to clearly identify any allergens used in the dish.
It’s good to talk
As well as providing written information, the FSA says having a conversation with the customer is important to ensure that the person preparing the meal is aware of any additional care they may need to take when doing so. It’s also valuable in helping the consumer understand any potential risks of cross-contamination with allergens in the preparation process and whether meals can be adapted to suit their needs.
The Agency has already begun the task of unpacking what the proposed changes mean for businesses, particularly independents who often lack the manpower and financial means to keep pace with new requirements. It recently commissioned research on how SMEs in the out of home sector manage allergen risk and discovered a range of businesses using a variety of different methods and approaches to fulfilling their existing legal obligations, each influenced by the individual business’s size and service model as well as their own belief about what would be effective.
The most common approach followed by businesses that took part in the study was to use written signs prompting those with specific dietary requirements to identify themselves and then have staff talk to customers to gain a better understanding of their requirements and come up with appropriate solutions.
The research also found a range of barriers which can limit the capability of staff to provide accurate allergen information to customers. These include limited and inconsistent staff knowledge about what allergens are present in the dishes served by the business, an issue that can be exacerbated by factors like insecure supply chains (requiring frequent ingredient substitution), out-of-date or incomplete written information on allergens, and more knowledgeable staff being too busy to educate their colleagues to the required standard. There was a feeling too among businesses that including a full, written list of ingredients on menus is impractical.
The FSA has also tried to learn from the approach taken by other countries, but with limited success. A literature review found no clear ‘gold standard’ for communicating allergen information for non-prepacked foods associated with improved safety, compliance and feasibility, amid a plethora of different national approaches.
Time will tell whether the recommended shift towards written information will work for both customers and businesses. Moreover, the prospect of further allergens regulation for hospitality and foodservice businesses remains very much in-play.
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