I do food inspections as part of my job. During our state wide training they ran us through multiple allergy incidents that had led to the death of an individual. We were reading the full coroners investigations of these deaths.
Some of these had gone to court, and verdicts had been issued, predominantly fines rather than jail time.
The number one rule of allergy management, which was hammered into us, is that the person with the allergy is responsible for alerting the venue. The venue CANNOT be responsible for any harm if they were not told.
As in, there is a full, investigation that I had to sit there and read, in which a woman chose not to tell the venue she had a nut allergy. She didn’t have her epi pen with her, because she ‘didn’t like it cluttering up her purse’. She was holidaying in a remote town, with no hospital, only an on call nurse in a limited medical centre.
Unfortunately, this woman died as a result of her allergic reaction. The location she ate at was considered not at fault, as she hadn’t disclosed her allergy. The single on call nurse was praised for her incredible work under difficult circumstances, and considered not at fault.
Under the law, we can ONLY take action if the venue has supplied food that was incorrect. You’re allergic to peanuts, you order a peanut butter parfait, you eat it, you drop dead? That’s a you problem.
I’ve worked in commercial kitchens, one of which was at a summer camp. Low funding, not a lot of staff, an allergy list a mile long and yet you bet your ass we had not one single allergy incident. One kid was anaphylactic for gluten and eggs. Do you know how many things in a commercial kitchen have touched eggs or gluten? Fuck me, there’s a lot. We deep cleaned that kitchen beyond all reason. We allocated a special bench, and kitchen equipment. We allocated a particular staff member just for that kid’s food, who touched NOTHING ELSE during cooking.
prguitarman
gummygunk
pixelskylines
2087
izzy806
blakekathryn
