Caution For Restaurants and their Employees: Food Allergies in Consumers

Awareness of food Allergies is growing in India. Food servers need to be extra cautious while taking orders and serving consumers with food allergies, so do the chefs as they are the ones who would do the actual preparation of food. Therefore the Food servers must ensure that they ask the consumers if they are having any kind of food allergies. Even a very small trace of food may trigger a reaction, so it’s important for food and beverage service employees to be extra vigilant. This alertness can, not only gain a lot of trust of the consumer and but also loyal customers. The Food and Beverage Servers must have a thorough knowledge of the list of ingredients that go in a particular dish so that they can suggest allergy-free food or a substitute food / dish to the consumers.

India, with a diverse and distinctive food culture, has acquired its own group / list of allergens too.

More than 160 foods can cause allergic reactions in consumers with food allergies, the eight most common allergenic foods are as listed.

1. Milk
2. Eggs
3. Fish
4. Crustaceans (e.g., crab, lobster & shrimp)
5. Tree nuts (e.g., almonds, walnuts & pecans)
6. Peanuts
7. Wheat
8. Soybeans

Do not consume processed foods and foods in which artificial food colours are used, this may again be a major cause to trigger your food allergies.

Restaurants can definitely minimize cases of major allergies, by educating their staff.

Instituting guidelines for dealing with allergens is essential for the safety of customers and the reputation of your business.

Communicating with their customers, planning multiple menus where the consumer has more of choices to pick up / order the right dish for themselves. Also the restaurants can ensure listing ingredients under each dish in their menus.

Have an emergency plan, if a consumer suffers a reaction due to consumption of allergic food / dish.
An accurate procedure in case a customer goes into anaphylactic shock, must be created by the restaurant. Emergency medical services must be called. In some countries some restaurants are able to stock EpiPens in case of a major allergic reaction.

To be alert on this very significant and alarming increase of food allergies both the restaurants and consumers must educate themselves more. Raising awareness of food allergies is very important and essential, as many of us may ignore the reactions saying that they are simply rashes. It’s important to take this very seriously.