If a customer wants to know if a meal or other food is suitable for them, the staff should be able to advise them accordingly. The following steps can be used as a guideline for adequately addressing customer queries:

Are they allergic or intolerant to that food? Which specific ingredients do they want to avoid? Don’t guess about the ingredients, ask the chefs!

Every catering establishment should have a member of staff designated to dealing with food sensitive issues.

Whether the food in question contains the ingredients the customer has asked about? Any information the chef can provide on the ingredients that were already in the food or were added to it. Ingredient information should be kept available for the customer if they request this.

If the product is bought-in and sold in its original package, show the label to the customer. If you use bought-in pre-packed products as ingredients, information will be on the packaging or on the documentation delivered with the food. This can be shown to the customer. If you use fresh ingredients, know these and show the recipe to the customer.

Tell the customer. Always be truthful. Remember, you can always recommend a safe alternative.

Inform the customer. Consider the possibility that it could have been contaminated during the preparation, perhaps by sharing a spoon or knife or cutting board. Again inform the customer.

Once the information on the food, its ingredients and the possibility of cross-contamination has been provided, assessed and given to the customer, the customer must make the final decision whether or not to purchase the food.

• Get more details from the customer
• Refer the query to the manager or member of staff nominated to deal with queries relating to food allergies and intolerances
• The person dealing with the query/request needs to find out:
• Give the customer information on ingredients
• If the food contains the ingredient the customer must avoid
• If the food does not contain the ingredient the customer must avoid
• The customer makes the final decision