Stronger food labelling are being proposed to prevent further deaths of people with allergies.
All packaged food such as sandwiches and salads could be required to list the full ingredients. This comes after the death of Natasha Ednan-Laperouse who suffered an allergic reaction to a Pret a Manger baguette in 2016. Under current laws, the company did not have to list the ingredients of food packages and sold on the premises.
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The inquest into Natasha’s death heard the teenager was reassured by the lack of allergen information on the packaging when she bought the sandwich. The baguette she bought contained sesame seeds which caused her to go into cardiac arrest on board a flight in 2016. Her family want the laws to change “to prevent this kind of tragedy happening to other people”.
Four options are now being put forward for labelling food which is made, packaged and sold on the same premises:
- Full ingredient list labelling
- Allergen-only labelling
- Ask-the-staff labels with supporting information available for consumers in writing
- Promoting best practice around communicating allergen information to customers
The proposal will help people with allergies around the world and make sure that this situation will not happen again.
Environment Secretary Michael Gove called the proposed regulations “Natasha’s Law” and paid tribute to the work of her parents for fighting for the change. He said:
“We want to ensure that labels are clearer and that the rules for businesses are more consistent, so that allergy sufferers in this country can have confidence in the safety of their food.
“Many businesses are already bringing changes on board independently, and in the meantime they should continue doing all they can to give consumers the information they need.”
Under current guidelines, takeaways and restaurants are only required to let customers know of the 14 most dangerous allergens that are in their food – such as milk, peanuts and milk. However freshly made, non pre-packaged food does not have to be labelled according to the UK’s Food Regulations 2014.
Sesame is one of the 14 allergens that consumers must be made aware of when it is used as an ingredient in food products. Pret confirmed at the time of Natasha’s death, their products would not have been individually labelled with allergen or ingredient information. There are 4,500 people admitted to hospital each year with food allergies and 1 in 4 people with allergies have a reaction when eating out. Shockingly 10 people a year will die from food allergy per year.
