After teenager's death, food companies must 'increase' their knowledge of allergies | Allergies

Food allergy campaigners have urgently requested a meeting with the Health Secretary after a teenager with a severe milk allergy died as a result of an anaphylactic reaction while drinking a Costa Coffee hot chocolate.

The inquest into the death of 13-year-old Hannah Jacobs, who suffered from a severe allergy to dairy, fish and eggs since childhood, found that Costa Coffee had “broken procedures” which resulted in her drink being made with cow's milk instead of soya milk.

The case was a tragic reminder for the parents of Natasha Ednan-Laperouse, who died in 2016 after eating a baguette from a Pret-a-Manger store at Heathrow Airport that did not state on the packaging that it contained sesame seeds.

In the years since her death, Natasha's parents, Tanya and Nadim, founded the Natasha Allergy Research Foundation, which advocates for food preparation laws and advocates for the rights of families affected by food allergies.

They helped pass Natasha's Law in 2021, requiring companies to label prepackaged foods with a full list of ingredients.

On Saturday, they called for a better cultural and societal understanding of food allergies and the introduction of an “allergy czar” who could address a range of health, education and economic issues.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Nadim said: “There really needs to be more understanding and appreciation of food allergies in society at large, including companies operating in the food and drink sector.”

“Only through this and through behavioral changes can people’s safety be significantly improved.”

When asked what kind of support he would like from the government, Nadim said he wanted to be able to speak directly to the Minister of Health about his concerns. “If Wes [Streeting] When we listened, we said, “Look, you have been given a mandate with a new sheet of paper to lead this country on health issues. Please just meet with us and don't tell us you are too busy, as some of your colleagues did when we wrote to them before.”

“'Here's what we have to say and what is perfectly reasonable… We know that if you put some of our suggestions into action, we can make big improvements and contain the current crisis, this allergy epidemic.'”

According to Tanya, extreme food allergies appear to be on the rise, with 2.4 million adults in the UK living with a diagnosed food allergy.

Although deaths from food allergies remain rare (less than 10 per year in the UK), Tanya said living with a food allergy or raising a child with one is “very, very scary”, particularly given that food is such an integral part of life and society. “Every day can be full of anxiety,” she said.

Hannah's mother, Abimbola Duyile, has accused Costa Coffee of treating allergy training as a “box-ticking exercise”. At the time of Hannah's death, allergen training for new Costa employees consisted of a series of online modules that could be completed at home and a quiz that trainees had to pass.

The Ednan-Laperouses, who work with Duyile, said the training was far too basic and there were problems for staff who were not fluent in English. “People were using Google Translate just to understand the questions and had to repeat the exercise several times before they passed,” Tanya said.