Last year, 2025, I launched the Cater Allergy Safer Programme.
It didn’t just happen; a lot of work has been involved with developing it.
In January 2024, after delivering a Level 3 Food Safety course, a client asked about allergen training for their staff, and how they could do better. We had several conversations, and then we started working things out.
What needed to be done?
This week has seen a lot in the news, on TV, posts on Facebook and LinkedIn about a burger bar, based in a pub in Norwich, where the owner has been reported as refusing to serve people who have food allergies. Is he being responsible?
What do we have to do to make food businesses realise that they must provide information for their customers and get their staff trained in food allergen awareness and management? Read more
Having always been shut down when wanting to express myself, being told ‘no-one wants to hear you’, Read more
Following on from my previous blogs ‘It was a lonely existence’ and ‘Working in hospitality with food allergies’, I would like to share my experiences along the road of 50 years to diagnosis.
After many years of seeing various GPs and getting nowhere, I met a lady in 2008 at Olympia, London. Read more
In a word, yes!
Oats in and of themselves do not contain gluten, thus are gluten free.
Read on to learn more about why they must be certified. Read more
A response to the document released by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations and the World Health Organisation, in relation to setting threshold amounts for allergens. Link to the Food Safety Magazine article here: FAO/WHO Establishes Recommended Threshold Values for Allergens in Foods | Food Safety (food-safety.com) Read more
There was one chef I knew who was allergic to fish, yet he was the Fish Chef. Read more
I was bullied for many reasons through my school life. Having the name of Digweed, being slow at everything, being tired, feeling unwell, getting allergy rashes, wearing glasses, being good at singing… These were all ‘good reasons’ for my peers to poke fun at, pick on, and avoid me, I was fair game! I was rarely invited to parties and I kept myself to myself. I didn’t have friends.
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Having grown up navigating food allergies and intolerances, Stella realised at quite an early age that she would need to learn to prepare her own food. The best way for her to do this was to go to catering college. After 2 years in college, learning the industry, Stella worked in many hotels, hospitals, schools, pubs and supermarkets. Read more
