Food Allergies: Welcoming Intolerance
Restaurant chains that accommodate consumers with food allergies avoid possible risk while serving a loyal customer base.
By Mary Boltz Chapman, Editor-in-Chief -- Chain Leader, 11/1/2008 12:00:00 AM
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The restaurant chains featured in this story are in an enviable position, not because they offer menus, dishes and attentive service to those who are allergic to wheat, eggs or other common allergens. They have all benefited from a loyal group of customers sharing positive word-of-mouth via the Web sites and newsletters consumers use to share information about their allergies.
Anne Munoz-Furlong, who founded the Food Allergy & Anaphylaxis Network in 1991 to find resources to deal with her own child’s allergies, says these people don’t necessarily go out to restaurants looking for variety or even taste. “They go back to same restaurants,” she says. “They’re looking for trust.”
Grass-Roots Marketing
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| Red Robin attracts customers with food allergies because the consumers share good experiences on forums and blogs. |
Red Robin has found its way into the directories and blogs of food allergy advocates. “It’s the biggest way that news spreads,” says Jennifer Andrews, director of menu leadership for the 400-unit, Greenwood Village, Colo.-based chain. “People feel they can trust that information.”
While she has been happy to talk with the consumer sites, she hasn’t reached out to them to get included, noting that the consumer effort is more grass roots.
Peter Schonman at Biaggi’s has reached out to the sites. The executive chef of the 21-unit, Bloomington, Ill.-based Italian concept wasn’t looking to get listed as much as looking for information.
Munoz-Furlong cautions against using the consumer sites as a primary source of information because they rely on experience and opinions rather than science. What advice would she give a chain that wanted to provide allergen-free menu items? Talk to other chains; like food safety, dealing with food allergies is not a competitive point of difference. Operators can also download Welcoming Guests with Food Allergies, a booklet FAAN created with the help of a restaurant task force.
Information, Please
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| Maggiano’s chefs will talk to customers with allergies, both to make sure they have the information they need and that the guest feels comfortable. |
Red Robin has menus that cover each of the “Big Eight” allergies: eggs, milk, fish, shellfish, peanuts, tree nuts, soy and wheat gluten. The gluten-free menu is available on the chain’s Web site. Other menus vary from company units and franchised restaurants, due to differences in some of the ingredients purchased, but each menu is available at each restaurant. Menus are updated at least every month and carry an expiration date.
Red Robin rolled out the allergen-free menus to corporate stores, which account for almost three-quarters of the chain’s 420 restaurants, in October 2007. Franchised stores have had the menus since June 2008.
Brinker International is also among a growing list of restaurant companies that provide allergen information online. According to Stephen Posey, director of quality assurance and food safety, the Dallas-based parent of Chili’s, Romano’s Macaroni Grill, Maggiano’s and On the Border provides menu options free of the common allergens, allowing guests the opportunity to review the information prior to their restaurant visit and print the suggested menu options to bring with them to the restaurant.
Once at the restaurant, Andrews says, it’s important that managers speak to customers about their allegies, make them feel welcome and show them that they understand the information. At Red Robin, a manager immediately takes charge of the order. He or she can print the current menu for that guest’s allergy and discuss it with them. The order ticket shows a red allergy alert. The manager follows the dish through preparation, then delivers it to the customer.
In the kitchen, training staff on preparing allergen-free dishes is a natural extension of Red Robin’s thorough food-safety training. “The allergen program fits nicely within our food-safety program,” Andrews says. “None of this is possible if you don’t have training in the store.”
A survey reported in the April 2007 issue of Annals of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology, the scientific journal of the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology, showed food-allergy training was only conducted in 42 percent of restaurants and food establishments. The article noted that while about 90 percent of managers, servers and chefs reported varying degrees of comfort with providing a safe meal, they had some misconceptions like consuming a small amount of allergen is safe (24 percent); fryer heat destroys allergens (35 percent); and removal of an allergen from a finished meal was safe (25 percent).
Schonman echoes the importance of food-safety training. “Take cross-contamination. If you’re cognizant of the rules about poultry and seafood, you understand why you can’t cook gluten-free pasta in the pasta cookers,” he says.
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| Biaggi's says customers with allergies to shellfish and other foods often teach servers how to help them select a dish. |
Biaggi’s sells enough gluten-free pasta (four to six servings each night) that now it’s precooked and preportioned, and a special pot of water is on to heat it up. Schonman says the rice-based pastas take longer to cook, and having it precooked means customers with allergies and their tablemates don’t have to wait.
He’s looking for more ways to serve guests with food allergies, including trying to source gluten-free pizza dough from a manufacturer large enough to supply all the units.
It Takes a Village
Getting accurate information and orders through the supply chain is crucial. Munoz-Furlong tells the story of a girl who chose her meal from a restaurant’s egg-free menu. The server suggested vanilla ice cream for dessert. The child suffered a reaction because the ice cream was French vanilla, which has eggs in it, rather than the usual vanilla, which would have been safe to eat.
She understands that sometimes a kitchen has to make substitutions, but stresses that those substitutions need to be communicated to the staff, or the food-allergen program needs to be developed to account for those situations.
Munoz-Furlong believes the restaurant industry has vastly improved over the last four or five years thanks to customers asking about ingredients and operators’ awareness of allergy issues. She says nobody expects a restaurant chain to change its whole menu, but that provid-ing information can prevent mistakes. “People know what they can eat. Just let the guests know what’s in it,” Munoz-Furlong says. It’s OK to say I don’t know. “The customer would rather choose something else,” she says.
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Thank you for posting information about Red Robin serving food allergy customers. This will definitely come in handy; we'll share this information with our clients. We're "foodies" with an ever growing food allergy customer base. I feel like I've hit pay dirt by finding you! I've bookmarked your website and plan to check in with you a few times a week. Again, thank you SO MUCH for sharing such an awesome post. I know of at least two of our clients that have wondered where they could take their family for a moderately priced weekend meal, and thanks to you - we have the answer. Thank you again!
Carlo Powe-Crawford/Carlo At Your Service Productions - 2008-3-11 06:00:00 MST
Chain Leader
02/09/2010
