By Noah Rue, Contributor
Allergy-free diets are becoming the norm for more Americans. Some people are adopting these diets for health reasons, while others are just curious about how their health might improve by eliminating certain foods and ingredients.
It’s estimated that 32 million Americans have food allergies. When you run a restaurant, that’s an important figure to consider when it comes to keeping your patrons safe and happy. Of course, no food service business wants to sacrifice quality or taste simply to be allergy-friendly.
Thankfully, you don’t have to.
By understanding a bit more about food allergies and how they affect certain people, you can make adjustments to your restaurant that make it more allergy-friendly. Not only will that make your current patrons more comfortable, but it could end up attracting a completely new audience of people who deal with food allergies on a regular basis.
Let’s look at four management tips you can put into place to create and promote an allergen-friendly establishment.
1. Train Your Staff
No matter how many precautions you put in place, one of the biggest problems every restaurant deals with on a daily basis is human error. People aren’t perfect and mistakes can happen. However, you can mitigate those issues by training your staff as much as possible on food allergens and how to avoid them.
The eight major food allergens are:
Milk
Tree nuts
Eggs
Fish
Peanuts
Shellfish
Wheat
It’s essential that your entire staff knows which dishes these ingredients are in, and how to carefully warn people who order them in case they might have an allergy to one or more.
It’s just as important to make sure your staff (especially in the kitchen) knows how to avoid cross-contamination. It’s one thing to avoid putting a specific ingredient directly in a dish. However, if things aren’t properly cleaned and handled, it’s very easy for an allergen to contaminate other dishes in a busy kitchen. The people who do your inventory and orders also need to be made aware of which ingredients to avoid. If they aren’t trained to read labels, they could end up putting your patrons at risk.
Avoid organizational silos as you train your staff. When everyone is involved and on the same page, your staff will be more informed and your customers will be safer.
2. Identify Allergens on Your Menus
One of the easiest ways to keep your customers safe is to create a menu “key” that identifies common allergens in each dish. You could use a special symbol next to each item, or simply put an asterisk by specific ingredients to indicate they could cause an allergic reaction. Providing your guests with as many warnings as possible will make them feel more confident in their order.
Additionally, these identifications can open your menu to new dishes. Prioritizing an allergy-friendly environment can create a spark in your kitchen staff, encouraging them to specifically create dishes without allergens.
3. Advertise Your Restaurant as Allergy-Friendly
There are some common misconceptions that allergy-friendly diets are just “fads” or that people are jumping on board to lose weight or improve their health in other ways. However, many people really struggle with certain ingredients.
For example, gluten-free diets have become more popular than ever. And while not everyone is following them because they’re allergic, people with Celiac Disease must completely eliminate gluten from their diets. Even someone with gluten intolerance can experience symptoms like:
Bloating
Diarrhea
Constipation
Headaches
Because more people are on the hunt for allergy-friendly restaurants thanks to dietary restrictions, you can make your mark by advertising yourself on the right outlets. Sites like HappyCow are useful for helping patrons find vegan and vegetarian restaurants, while Find Me Gluten Free helps them discover restaurants with gluten-free dishes and practices. Placing your business in these directories can open you up to new audiences who might not have noticed you otherwise.
4. Become Allergen-Friendly Certified
If you really want your customers to take your allergy-friendly efforts seriously, become certified. By taking certain courses, you can certify that your kitchen is free from any/all of the top eight allergens. You can also certify your kitchen from gluten, and promote the fact that every member of your team is allergy-friendly certified, meaning they understand the main allergens and how to avoid cross-contamination.
It might seem like a lot of marketing, but if you’re going to go through the effort of managing an allergy-friendly restaurant, it’s important to let people know about it.
Running your restaurant this way lets your customers know you care about their needs and want them to have an enjoyable dining experience without worrying about getting sick or going through a reaction. Keep these tips in mind, make sure your team is on board, and don’t be afraid to share your allergen-friendly practices as soon as possible with your current patrons. You never know who might tell their gluten-free friends or people with other food allergies to check out your business for the first time.
