For some customers, “free-from diets” are a lifestyle choice, but for the increasing number of people who suffer from food allergies, eating food can be a matter of life or death, or can at least result in a trip to the hospital, which is not how they want to end an enjoyable night out. At Noodle-Box, we take these matters very seriously and we have put in place a series of measures to ensure customers with food allergies and intolerances can eat at our restaurants and delivery food with confidence. Whilst we have to balance that needs of the majority of customers, and can’t protect against every eventuality of minor cross contamination for all allergens unless we exclude certain ingredients from our kitchens, we aim to strike the right balance.
What is important is that we are clear with the information we provide, our staff are trained, and customers with food allergies are put into a position where they can make an educated choice as to whether or not to dine with us, or whether or not to order a particular dish. We understand that those with life-threatening food allergies may decide not to eat out.
Separately, for those with dietary preferences but not allergies, we also publish key indicators on our main menus to give information about popular dietary choices. This helps customers to make an informed choice about which dish they should order, and avoids confusion between customers and our teams.
All our managers, order-taking wait staff, chefs and kitchen staff are provided with training and we stress the importance of the processes we have in place and the potential danger to customers with allergies of eating ingredients that may make them ill.
This training, menu, recipe development, our processes and procedures to ensure we can provide a safe environment as well as tasty food, is one the reasons we decline customers’ requests to cook special dishes that are not on our menu or to bring food to our restaurants.
Our policy includes requirements for staff to ask all customers if they have an allergy prior to ordering.
Ultimately, customers with food allergies understand that no restaurant or food supplier can offer a 100% guarantee that they will never unknowingly serve an ingredient that is not disclosed, that cross-contamination is impossible or human error can occur, but at Noodle-Box we invest considerable resources to ensure customers can be confident when they dine with us, and that they have the information to enable them to make the choice whether to dine with us or choose a particular dish.
We encourage customer feedback on this policy and have discussed the contents with medical professionals. Further information on food allergies and intolerances can be found on the Allergy UK Website.