AllergyEats, the guide to allergy-friendly restaurants nationwide, recently held the 2nd Annual AllergyEats Food Allergy Conference for Restaurateurs: What Every Restaurant Should Know About Food Allergies To Ensure Safety & Maximize Customer Engagement, Loyalty, and Revenue. At the event, experts provided actionable tips to make restaurants more allergy-friendly. Attendees, including restaurant owners, managers, and chefs, as well as other food service operators, received advice about implementing food allergy protocols to better accommodate guests with food allergies.
The conference featured speakers from the National Restaurant Association, P.F. Chang's China Bistro, Blue Ginger, Burton's Grill, MenuTrinfo, Kids With Food Allergies Foundation, and AllergyEats, as well as allergists from Massachusetts General Hospital and Boston Children's Hospital, who provided information about accommodating food-allergic guests, reducing the fear around food allergies, building customer loyalty and profits, and other related food allergy issues.
"The AllergyEats team was thrilled to once again offer prestigious, knowledgeable speakers, including chefs, professional trainers, physicians and more, at our 2nd Annual Food Allergy Conference for Restaurateurs. Attendees benefitted from hearing our experts' advice about food allergy protocols, as well as ways to boost food allergy training, improve communication, and avoid cross-contamination," says Paul Antico, founder and CEO of AllergyEats, father of three food-allergic children, and passionate food allergy advocate. “Attendees were also inspired by the business case in support of accommodating food allergic diners that, ultimately, leads to increased loyalty, revenue, and profits.”
The experts' tips included advice on training staff about food allergies, creating a food allergy protocol, establishing proper means of communication, and developing detailed lists of ingredients
Experts also provided tips to avoid cross contamination, ranging from using clean utensils, cutting boards, pots, pans ,and plates for food-allergic guests. They also said to designate certain equipment as allergy-friendly and to recognize the business benefits of becoming allergy-friendly.
The conference, which was held in Boston, featured a panel of experts, including Ming Tsai, James Beard Award-winning chef and owner of Blue Ginger and Blue Dragon; Lynda Mitchell, president of Kids With Food Allergies Foundation; and more.
"The Food Allergy Conference was filled with extremely valuable information for food service industry professionals. Our panelists covered a variety of important topics and conference attendees raved about the high caliber of speakers and the constructive, easy-to-implement tips they learned at the event," Antico says. “Attendees also enjoyed the opportunity to mix and mingle with the speakers, other attendees, sponsors, and vendors.”
This conference was sponsored by Mylan Specialty L.P., the National Restaurant Association, the Massachusetts Restaurant Association, MenuTrinfo, and the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America.
Plans are already in the works for another AllergyEats Food Allergy Conference for Restaurateurs to be held in 2014. Details will soon be available on the company’s website.
