Who should I talk to and what should I tell them about my food allergy to make sure my needs are addressed?

Transcripts

Bob Gravani: Hi, I am Bob Gravani. I am a professor of food science at Cornell University. My area of interest is food safety and I have been working in that area most of my professional career. We have just completed food allergy study with severely food allergic consumers and today I would like to talk a little bit about how allergies can be managed when people dine out in restaurants.

Host: At a restaurants, who should I talk to and what should I tell them about my food allergy to make sure my needs are addressed?

Bob Gravani: A severely food allergic consumer would probably want to contact a restaurant well ahead of the time that they plan to dine out. It would be important to talk to the chef, who is involved in meal preparations, the owner or the manager. During that time the food allergic consumer can get a sense of level of knowledge that these people have about food allergens, how seriously they take this threat and what they can do assure that the offending allergic food will not be cross contacted with the dish that the patron orders. I think that is very very important as people get a sense of trust between the restaurants and thier level of risk. 1