Expense or investment?

What is the impact of food allergies on food businesses?

As always there can be positive and negative impacts of any service.

Looking at the slide below, you will see that there are several notable things.

On the positive side, when a restaurant makes sure their staff are trained in allergen awareness and management, and their procedures are excellent and closely followed, and they are open to conversations with the diner, they can be sure that their customers are as safe as possible.

Even the best chef in the world will not remember at the drop of a hat, under pressure, every last ingredient in all the dishes on the menu, so those ingredients and recipes must be written and recorded somewhere.

Now, like with food safety, we can only ever reduce a hazard to a safe level, and the FHS diner knows there are likely to be allergens in the kitchen. The reality is that they probably have allergens in their own kitchen at home, so they understand fully about what is possible and what is necessary to avoid cross contamination. It is not rocket science, or quantum physics, just training, organisation, and communication.

Everyone knows that a happy customer will tell their friends and family, they will return bringing other people along too.

Equally, an unhappy customer will also tell their friends and family, they will also tell the world via social media, and that probably without speaking to the business first!

In either case, there might be reviews on sites such as Tripadvisor, Google, or Allergy Companions, where there will be all manner of comments which could impact your business for good or bad.

The upshot of reviews is more customers, increased turnover, and a thriving, growing business. I have heard of people making the effort to visit somewhere to find out just how BAD it is, but it is much more likely to gain customers from good reviews, so why take the risk?

Moving on from reviews, there is recognition through awards. Whether that’s a Michelin Star, AA Rosette, the Cateys, a local business award, or a 5* on the FHRS, it is important to realise that customers look for these, and it will make a difference to your business.

On the negative side, I have already mentioned the social media that people seem to run to as first port of call to tell the world how terrible the food was, or how bad the service was. I was actually laughed at for pointing out to a ‘keyboard warrior’ that the best route of action is to speak to the business directly, and then report it to either the Environmental Health or Trading Standards.

Once reported, there will certainly be more costs, ranging from a few improvements to procedures, training or re-training the staff, to legal fees, fines and court costs, and the potential closure of the business.

To recap then, train your staff, have good allergen awareness, policies, and management procedures, know your ingredients, have the documents, and make the investment.

A wonderful lady I know, Yinka Ewuola, says “The definition of expensive, is when the price is greater than the value.”

I've heard business owners say that training is expensive, they can't afford it. Many muddle along, pretending they know what they are doing, without getting help and support, because they think it is expensive.

Now I will ask you 2 questions, a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ will suffice.

Do you value your business more than the necessary training and advice?

Do you need to invest in training and support around allergen awareness and management?

Drop your answer in the DMs, and I’ll get back to you.

I'm Stella, the chef who was almost killed by a raw onion, the chef who had to get out of the kitchen because of allergies and EoE. I am passionate to bridge the chasm between hospitality and the food hypersensitive customer.