Article

How to efficiently train your staff about food allergies

Very minute or even trace amounts of a food can cause a reaction in a highly sensitive patient. However, these are often all preventable with the proper education on how to work with food allergies in your kitchen environment.

March 18, 2016

By Jeff Rebh, president and CEO, Innoseal

Food allergy-induced reactions are often unexpected and move quickly throughout the body and can cause a series of dangerous and sometimes fatal symptoms, including hives, swelling of the lips and throat, diarrhea, and high fever. They result in over 200,000 emergency room visits a year. According to foodallergy.org, milk, eggs, peanuts, tree nuts, fish, shellfish, soy, and wheat account for 90 percent of all food-allergic reactions. Very minute or even trace amounts of a food can cause a reaction in a highly sensitive patient. However, these are often all preventable with the proper education on how to work with food allergies in your kitchen environment.

Identifying allergens

Contrary to popular belief, most common foods can contain the most overlooked allergens. For example, mayonnaise contains eggs; cheese, yogurt, and many brands of "non-dairy" labeled products do, in fact, contain milk. These common foods often have a scientific identity such as "albumin," which is derived from egg, and whey, which is a gathered from milk. Learning the names of these allergens can help in understanding what types of foods are associated with them and can help the dining experience move much smoother for all parties involved. The only way to completely avoid allergic reactions is by avoiding the allergy-causing foods. It's imperative to read all the ingredient labels for your foods in efforts to maintain control over the allergy itself.

What food-allergic individuals need from you

Food-allergic individuals need the service staff to offer them accurate and detailed information about the menu choices, including any byproducts associated with the meal preparation itself. A food-allergic patient will not have the opportunity to know about the ingredients used in a select menu items unless they are informed upfront. For fried items, this can include what types of oils are used and if the frying area is used for any other foods that may contain possible allergies for your consumers. Incorrect or vague menu item descriptions puts some customers at risk for reactions as well.

The 'Diner' Responsibility

Over-communicating can save someone’s life! It's nothing to be embarrassed about in an age where specificity is golden. Diners with allergies and intolerances have a responsibility to inform the staff of their allergies too. Unfortunately, they sometimes do not. However, it's always handy to have checkpoints to inquire about them throughout their dining experience.

Training, Development, and doing your part

Kitchen staff should be provided with written information that details how they should appropriately manage a food-allergy request, including identity, preparation and delivery. There's small things you can do to get the education ball rolling. Try going over new dishes — their flavors, ingredients and, most importantly, the allergens included with them. Kitchen managers can teach new front-end and back-of-the-house staff on their establishment's allergy plan, including a cooking guide with a record of deviation from the standard recipes.

Food intolerances can cause an array of digestive discomforts; however an allergy can potentially kill someone. The bigger picture of menu selection is that people can be allergic to nearly anything — no matter how minute or bizarre. Microbes of allergens have the potential to induce a fatal allergic reaction. An allergy sufferer who experiences something more complex, such as hives, could go into a fatal anaphylaxis during their next reaction.

Many areas of the country are concentrating on educating food establishments on these facts. The Food Allergy Research & Education non-profit group, commonly known as FARE, recently launched ServSafe Allergens online training course, while a second partner, MenuTrinfo, offers allergen training for restaurants as well. Any food-group whose employees pass the training may then join FARE's searchable database, which showcases allergy-friendly restaurants that the organization hopes will push restaurants to train their employees.

There's always going to be a new waiter, a new busser and a new cook. Therefore, training is a rolling and growing process. Showing your new staff members the nearly-biblical ropes on food-allergies should be taken just as seriously as anything else. For example, when meal prepping, if they're chopping peanuts on the cutting board; they should treat it like raw chicken. When anyone in the culinary world cuts raw chicken on a cutting board they wash everything religiously afterwards. They wash their hands, the board, the knife, the tongs — everything! You have to treat food allergies with the same respect.

To learn more about specific food allergies, visit www.foodallergy.org.

Jeff Rebh is president and CEO of Innoseal, an international manufacturer and distributor of tamper-evident bag-sealing solutions.