Allergen Awareness in the Foodservice Industry
Stacey Archibald

29th April 2016

Allergen Awareness in the Foodservice Industry

 

The EU allergen labelling regulations, which came into force in December 2014, mean that caterers have to take extra care to protect customers and the reputation of their business. One of the biggest causes of allergic reactions in restaurants is cross contamination during food preparation in commercial kitchens. To avoid this, chefs should look for equipment that helps create an allergen-safe preparation area, such as FEM’s San Jamar Allergen Saf-T-Zone System, FEM’s Cambro Allergen-Free Camsquares and Vollrath Allergen Purple Kitchen Utensils.

San Jamar Allergen Saf-T-Zone System

The San Jamar Allergen Saf-T-Zone System is a simple but effective approach to safe food prep, creating a portable safe prep area, ready to use whenever required helping to stop allergens reaching customers with food allergies.

The Saf-T-Zone System comprises of a purple cutting board and purple-handled tools, including 12-inch stainless-steel tongs; 10-inch stainless-steel, commercial-grade chef's knife and a high-temperature, angled nylon turner. All tools and the board securely snap into a durable, matching purple case that keeps all the equipment separate from other equipment and allergens, helping to prevent cross contamination.

The Saf-T-Zone cutting board is embossed with warnings reminding staff to keep the prep area ring-fenced and to thoroughly clean and sterilise the equipment after use. It is made of hardwearing purple co-polymer material designed to withstand continual high temperature commercial washing without warping.

The eye-catching purple is ideal to differentiate the Saf-T-Zone from other colour-coded utensils. It’s a very clear and obvious system to show due diligence.

Cambro Allergen-Free Food Storage

The Cambro Allergen-Free Camsquares are food storage boxes designated for allergen-free ingredients. They also use purple on their graduations, logo and seal covers to easily differentiate these ingredients from other containers in the kitchen. The seal covers feature an inner and outer seal to help keep ingredients safe from cross-contamination, even during transportation. The Camsquares are available in a range of capacities up to 11.4 litres.

FEM’s Cambro Allergen-Free range also includes Allergen-Free measuring cups and StoreSafe Allergen-Free dissolvable labels.

As well as having the right equipment in the kitchen, all staff need to be trained in good kitchen practice in order to understand the requirements of food allergic customers and how to prevent cross contamination.

San Jamar Saf-T-Zone Mats

San Jamar’s new Saf-T-Zone Mats help employees to easily identify an allergen zone, where allergen preparation is being done. The mats are available as 12” x 12” Server Window Mats and larger 24” x 30” prep station. Both mats identify the top 8 allergens to aid employee allergen awareness. The purple colour helps to safeguard your business by alerting staff to follow special food allergy procedures in the kitchen.


Vollrath Allergen Purple Utensils

Vollrath’s colour-coded kitchen utensils are one-piece construction for heavy-duty commercial use, featuring colour-coded Allrgen Purple handle for allergen preparation and easy identification.  In the range, Vollrath offer Spoodles, Kool-Touch LadlesUtility Grip Tongs and Colour-Coded Dishers.

 

 

 

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