Allergen info must appear on all menus
Hotels and restaurants say that allergen labelling laws that come into force this weekend are oppressive.
From tomorrow, food businesses will be required to provide written allergen information on loose foods.
Adrian Cummins, chief executive of the Restaurants Association of Ireland, said the labelling requirement would cause huge heartache for restaurant owners.
“The industry isn’t prepared for this regime and we need six to 12 months to help businesses be fully compliant for this EU legislation,” he said.
The Irish Hotels Federation said the regulations were “overly burdensome”.
The federation is advising members to ensure that written allergen information is provided centrally in an easily accessible manner to guests and that the location of the information is sign-posted on menus.
The law will fundamentally change the way food is sold in supermarkets, restaurants, office canteens, and schools.
It also covers food purchased online.
The legislation will be enforced by environmental health officers under contract to the Food Safety Authority of Ireland.
However, it will be an enormous burden for independent retailers who change their dishes based on the availability of fresh ingredients.
The allergens covered by the rules include cereals containing gluten, shellfish, eggs, fish, soybean products, milk, nuts, celery, mustard, and sesame seeds.
Mr Cummins said that the consultation process did not extend beyond an online survey and was totally inadequate and unbalanced.
“It took the form of a email sent out in the middle of the summer and 39 businesses and 237 consumers responded,” said Mr Cummins.
“There was no opportunity provided for the 45,000 registered food businesses to meet and discuss the proposals further.”
Mr Cummins said the EU legislation was given to each member state to implement in its own way and that Ireland had adopted the “best boy in class” regime.
FSAI chief food specialist Pat O’Mahony said the authority had put information on its website and had advertised the changes as much as possible.
However, the laws were only introduced in October so the authority had not had a lot of time to get the word out there.
He was hoping the environmental health officers would take a “pragmatic” approach to the implementation of the new laws.
The notice has to be on menus tomorrow by law, but Dr O’Mahony believes officers will “go easy” on food outlets until the legislation “beds in”.
A spokesperson for the Department of Health said the measure was to inform and protect the public, especially those with allergies.
Anne Manning, food list manager with the Coeliac Society of Ireland, said the allergen rules had applied to pre-packed foods since 2005 and had been improved and extended to loose foods.
Leading supermarket chains Aldi and Tesco said their labels would be fully complaint by tomorrow.
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