Food allergies are a major health issue. 220 million people are affected worldwide, and 40% of children experience a life-threatening reaction when encountering an allergen.
Ensuring food safety for customers sitting down for a meal at a full-service restaurant is one thing. Ensuring food safety for takeaway, to-go, and delivery food orders is entirely another. Keeping customers safe from food allergens and restrictions after the order has left the premises presents unique challenges. This is why allergen labels are so essential for takeaway food safety.
Allergen Information on Takeaway Food Labels
There are food safety standards in place to protect diners and ensure food allergies do not lead to injury or death – these standards are important especially when food is taken to be eaten away from a restaurant. Proper labelling on takeaway food packaging is the simplest and most efficient way to help implement these regulations and prioritise customer safety for to-go and delivery orders.
Current allergy laws stipulate food allergen labels must highlight allergens on the label using a distinctive font, style or background colour. Allergens must also be listed in the ingredients. The allergens that must be listed on labels are as follows:
- celery
- cereals containing gluten – including wheat, rye, barley and oats
- crustaceans – including prawns, crab and lobster
- eggs
- fish
- lupin
- milk
- molluscs – including squid, mussels, cockles, whelks and snails
- mustard
- nuts
- peanuts
- sesame seeds
- soya beans
- sulphur dioxide or sulphites at levels above 10mg per kilogram or per litre
Food labels also ensure visibility and accountability when preparing food for consumption. This mitigates the risk of reactions from any of the identified food allergens above due to cross-contamination during the preparation stage, or possible employee oversight.
When packaging is clearly labelled with allergy icons and disclaimers, as well as accurate ingredient lists, customers can make informed decisions without the aid of a server or menu.
Food Allergen Labelling Ensures Takeaway Food Safety
Labelling ingredients and packaging by hand is a time-consuming task. It also increases the likelihood of human error. As managers and staff cannot keep an eye on operations after an order has left the restaurant, it is labels that are the first, and last, line of defense against food allergies.
The DateCodeGenie automated labelling system makes it easy to keep allergen information accurate and up to date. Not only does it make the entire labelling process easier, printing nutrition information, dietary restrictions and warning labels instantly from a unified dashboard. It also makes mandated regulation changes, e.g., Natasha’s Law, easier to manage as well with changes added quickly and easily for one or many restaurant locations.
DateCodeGenie allergen labelling helps kitchen staff:
- Prioritise food safety and transparency for takeaway and delivery food items
- Keep allergen information current, accurate, and consistent across multiple locations
- Ensure all allergens are properly marked during food preparation to avoid cross-contamination and other errors
Keeping consumers safe and happy is ultimately the goal of any foodservice establishment. NCCO is proud to offer the DateCodeGenie to help ensure food safety, protect against food allergies and comply with allergy legislation as well.