Ingredient Allergy Checker
What is the benefit to checking your ingredients?
Ultimately life or death: food hypersensitive people will thank you for taking the time to research your ingredients to highlight what exactly is in them. There are reported to be over 2 million adults in the UK allergic to food allergens and many more with food intolerances.
This is a growing trend that cannot be ignored anymore. The hospitality industry needs to be aware of the millions of people that have food allergies and intolerances and they need to accommodate them. By turning a blind eye, you will in the long run isolate your restaurant and your customers will stop coming.
How do I find the ingredients from the products I buy?
Your food suppliers have a duty by law to provide you with the data sheets or list of ingredients within the products they sell you.
Data sheets come in all sorts of formats, to install as much accurate information into Allergen Checker we recommend you copy and paste the information in, so you get it correct at source.
We believe at Allergen Checker that there needs to be more stringent legislation put onto the manufacturers to provide the information in a more generic way, because many companies provide you with partial information which is not helpful to you or the end user who is consuming the food.
Why do I need to provide Full ingredient lists?
Since the tragic death of Natasha Edan-Laperouse (a 15 year old school girl who was going on holiday to France with her family, and collapsed 35 minutes into the flight) after eating what she thought was a harmless artichoke and olive baguette that she had brought from Pret A Manger at Heathrow airport. She was severally allergic to dairy, bananas, sesame seeds and nuts. Both her parents had checked the packaging of the baguette for any mention of the allergic foods that Natasha could not eat. Once they were satisfied that none of the ingredients were in the sandwich, Natasha ate it. Unfortunately, as the sandwich was made on site it slipped through the allergy law and Pret were not govern to detail everything.
From the 1st October 2021 you will, by law, have to provide a full ingredient list of whatever is in your product you sell covered under the guidelines of the amended Allergen laws. Called PPDS foods (Pre-packed Direct Sale). To discover if your products come under this new amendment, you can answer some question on the food standard agency site link here: https://www.food.gov.uk/allergen-ingredients-food-labelling-decision-tool
Here at Allergen Checker we have taken the decision to implement full ingredient listing across everything we provide within our software. As we are fully aware that there are plenty of ingredients that people are allergic to that are not necessarily covered by the 14 labelled allergens.
This will enable your customers to make safer informed choices into what they eat.
Why use Allergen Checker?
We have spent the last few years creating and developing our software to be as easy to use and comprehensive as possible. It is accessible from the internet with no downloadable parts. You have access to it 24/7, 365 days a year for a yearly subscription.
It takes time to set up but once all your ingredients are in your virtual store cupboard it is easy to compile a list of dishes or products and then menus or product lists.
We have already installed over 500 ingredients to get you started so you will need to add any dry goods or frozen goods that are manufactured off site.
You can print labels for containers or sandwich bags; store menus (as PDFs); print menus or download your unique QR code and place on your own menus for quick access of allergen information for your customers.
It complies with all Allergen labelling legislation currently law and future law changes from 1st October 2021.