Food firms must ‘up the ante’ on allergy knowledge after UK teenager’s death

Food allergy campaigners have requested an urgent meeting with the UK health secretary after a teenager with a severe dairy allergy died following an anaphylactic reaction to drinking a Costa Coffee hot chocolate.

The inquest into the death of Hannah Jacobs, 13, who had been severely allergic to dairy products, fish and eggs since she was a toddler, found there had been “a failure to follow the processes” at Costa Coffee, which led to her drink being prepared with cow’s milk instead of soya milk.

The case was a tragic reminder for the parents of Natasha Ednan-Laperouse, who died in 2016 after eating a baguette from a Pret a Manger store at Heathrow airport which did not disclose on the packaging that it contained sesame seeds.

In the years since her death, Natasha’s parents, Tanya and Nadim, have established the Natasha Allergy Research Foundation, campaigning for legislation around food preparation and advocating for families affected by food allergies.

They helped bring about the introduction of Natasha’s Law in 2021, which requires businesses to label prepackaged food with a full ingredients list.

On Saturday, they called for a better cultural and societal understanding of food allergies and the introduction of an “allergy tsar” who could consider a range of issues across health, education and business.

Nadim said on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme: “The understanding and appreciation of food allergies by society in general, including businesses that are involved in food and drink, really needs to up the ante.

“Only through that and through behavioural change can people be kept much more safe.”

Asked what he would like in terms of government support, Nadim said he wanted to be able to talk directly to the health secretary about their concerns. “If Wes [Streeting] was listening we’d say: ‘Look, you’ve been given a mandate with a fresh sheet of paper to lead this country around issues of health. Please just meet with us, don’t tell us you’re too busy as some of your colleagues have when we wrote to them previously.

“‘Here’s what we have to say which is entirely common sense … we know that if you follow through with some of the things we have to suggest we can make vast improvements and start to dial back this crisis that’s happening, this allergy epidemic.’”

Tanya said extreme food allergies appeared to be on the rise , with 2.4 million adults in the UK living with a diagnosed food allergy .

Although deaths from food allergies remain rare, at fewer than 10 a year in the UK, Tanya said living with a food allergy or raising a child with one was “very, very frightening”, especially given how food is such an integral part of life and society. “Every day can be fraught with anxiety,” she said.

Hannah’s mother, Abimbola Duyile, has accused Costa Coffee of treating allergy training as a “tick-box exercise”. At the time of Hannah’s death allergen training for new Costa staff involved a series of online modules that could be done at home, and a quiz that trainees had to pass.

The Ednan-Laperouses, who are working with Duyile, said the training was far too basic and issues arose for staff who were not fluent in English. “People were using Google Translate just to understand the questions, and repeating the exercise multiple times before they could pass,” Tanya said.