What are the most common/serious allergens?
There are 14 allergens recognised by law which operators legally have to display on their products which are:
- Celery
- Cereals containing gluten
- Crustaceans
- Eggs
- Fish
- Lupin
- Milk
- Molluscs
- Mustard
- Tree nuts
- Peanuts
- Sesame seeds
- Soybeans
- Sulphate
Business operators can use icons or symbols to indicate the presence of allergens as long as it is accompanied by words and numbers to ensure consumer understanding.
What are the benefits of better allergen communication?
Alongside the legal requirements, there’s a competitive advantage to being allergy aware. Food Standards Authority (FSA) research shows that an estimated 2.4 million people in the UK suffer from food allergies. This highlights a potentially huge market to businesses.
Crucially, the FSA revealed that 59% of young people will eat in the same outlet, if they have eaten safely before, improving consumer trust and retention. The data reveals the clear benefits of effectively communicating allergen information to customers.
How can industry leading EPoS help?
ICRTouch solutions have been developed with ease of use and convenience in mind, providing you with a suite of intuitive technology to facilitate your day to day operations. The 14 major allergens are built into TouchOffice Web and can be added to your products at the click of a button, prompting an allergen alert to pop up on screen if the desired product is selected.
TouchOffice Web also provides users the option to add any additional allergens that products may contain. Thanks to seamless integration, these allergen alerts will display across all your integrated sales channels like TouchPoint, PocketTouch, TouchPoint lite, SelfService, ByTable and TouchTakeaway. In a self-service environment, it’s crucial to alert customers of allergen information and provide the opportunity for customer-specific instructions, making the functionality especially important.
For personalised food items such as sandwiches and smoothies, food labels can be printed with allergen information on, so that customers can see the allergen information before consumption. In scenarios where a customer hasn’t interacted with a member of staff – which is becoming more popular by the day, this is also a brilliant way of informing them of all important allergen information.
Alongside allergen alerts, the ICRTouch ecosystem is packed with heaps of additional functionality to facilitate your operations. For more information about how the solutions can streamline your operation and allow you to comply with other legal requirements, reach out to a local Authorised Partner, who’ll be happy to assist you.
