Careful … you are what you eat!
In the third of series of panels looking at food safety issues, Glanbia Food Service's technical and food safety manager Sue Matthews explains that, when it comes to allergies and intolerances, you need to know exactly what you're serving your customers.
It is not uncommon to hear in the news about people of all ages whose health has been seriously affected by food allergies and intolerances. Nut allergies are probably the most high profile cases, yet the effects of a host of other foods can also be, for some, literally a matter of life and death.
As a caterer, you have a responsibility to inform your customers of the presence of any ingredient in the food you serve that may cause an allergy or intolerance.
So, how do you know exactly what's in the food that you buy in? There's always the ingredients label, but this doesn't necessarily show quantities of ingredients present in miniscule amounts.
At Glanbia Food Service, our customers can gain access to the total specifications of all our products, stored on a central database, simply by calling their Glanbia sales representative. And if more specialist information or details of miniscule quantities are required, Glanbia's technical team are on hand to help out.
We label all our food with percentages of ingredients, together with a wealth of supplementary information covering diet and mutational values. This is in line with QUID (Quantitative Ingredient Declarations, brought in through the recent Food Labelling Regulations) to help caterers provide their customers with any necessary information.
To help caterers further, all products in our regular sales brochure, The Menue, are listed with a key clearly showing whether they're suitable for vegetarians, contain nuts and, from later this year, whether they contain gluten. At Glanbia, much care is taken in tracing every constituent ingredient, no matter how minute, to allow our customers to offer meals with complete confidence.
And it's not just the causes of headline grabbing allergies, such as nuts, that we endeavour to trace. We take care to check quantities of other ingredients - such as paprika, papper, cream and cheese - which in some people can cause discomfort and sickness. Our job, then is not just to protect people's lives, but also to help them lead a normal life and thoroughly enjoy the food you serve them.
