Allergy awareness – or the lack of it – in high street takeaways

We had a nice little bit of coverage on last night’s ITN 6 o’clock news thanks to a report from the Royal Society of Public Health  revealing that :

* Over two thirds of all takeaways visited (55 around London) failed to provide legally required information on how customers can find out if the 14 major allergens are in their food
* Over half of fried chicken, fish and chips, chinese, sushi and pizza shops were unable to state whether their food contained an allergen
* Four in five said they were not in possession of records stating whether allergens were present in ingredients used and nine out of ten could not produce this when asked

Surprise, surprise…. Takeaways, which have always presented the greatest danger to allergic people, are usually small, independent outlets many of whom (over 60% according to the RSPH) are unlikely to have even heard that regulations are in place, let alone what they are or how to follow them. A lot of work still to be done there – and anyone with an allergy would be wise to continue to steer clear.

However, that is not to say that there are not exceptions – and ITN found one in which to conduct one of their interviews – Olley’s in leafy Herne Hill – just opposite the lovely Brockwell Park down in south London. (And for anyone who says, as we north Londoners do, how on earth am I meant to get to Herne Hill…. I have just discovered the Thames Link – which links up with my now absolutely favourite railway, the London Overground. It whisks you from Hampstead Heath to Herne Hill in less than 30 minutes!!! In a pleasantly cool, uncrowded train….)

Olley’s is a fish and chipper par excellence. Started many years ago (I think Harry said 1997 but am not quite sure…) by Harry Niazi as a takeaway, it has grown and grown to a now quite big restaurant with a take-away next door. But what a fish and chip shop! Only serving MSC sustainable fish (they have an award to prove it), they now have a gluten free Monday evening and Tuesday and an excellent allergen chart covering all fourteen allergens and all the food that they serve in the restaurant and the take-away. And…..  the fish and chips are DELICIOUS. Sadly both the ITN crew and I had to rush away so could only just taste the steaming plateful put in front of us but I am seriously considering another trip on the Thames Link to allow me indulge at my leisure. Especially since I noticed that Harry offers gluten-free beers to go with his gf fish and chips on Monday and Tuesdays!

And here he is, breathing a happy sigh of relief once the interview was done, with the ITN crew in the background!

But it was not just Harry and I who got on the news! The researcher had asked me if I knew anyhow who had problems eating out – so naturally I put them in touch with Ruth of What Allergy?  And to do Ruth’s interview, they nipped up the road from their Grey’s Inn Road headquarters to our Catherine (with a C)’s café, the Printworks Kitchen, in Roseberry Avenue!! So we had the full team on the six o’clock news last night!!

Anyhow, thank you ITN and RSPH – all coverage for allergen compliance with the new regulations is welcome, even when the results of the research are depressing, if not unexpected.

And come on, takeaways! It is not really as though the regulations are asking that much of you…. Just to know what is in your food and to be able to tell your customers ! OK, so you do have to learn what the 14 major allergens are and to be able to recognise them in the food you prepare. But even this is now so much easier than before the arrival of the new regulations.  Now it is no longer good enough to just state ‘casein’ or ‘modified starch’ on an ingredients list; if the casein or the modified starch is derived from one of the 14 allergens, then that allergen (milk or wheat, for example) has to be included in bold, in brackets, after the ingredient. So come on guys, get your act together! You could enter the Street Food and Takeaways category of the FreeFrom Eating Out Awards for starters!!

Just a little footnote to my trip to Brockwell Park – and nothing to do with allergy!

As you can see from image at the top, Olley’s is situated in the middle of a quite long parade of small shops, and as I was walking back to the station I caught sight of this amazing wedding dress in the window of the Brixton Cake Shop!!

There were tiers and tiers and roses and fairy castles and goodness knows what but I did think that the dress was quite the finest bit of wedding cake frippery I had ever laid eyes upon. Sadly they were closed when I passed or I would have gone in and asked how much it would cost to have such a beautiful dress made – I am suspecting about as much as the real thing!!