Food Allergen Resource

Food Allergen Awareness

The Greater Gwent Food Group, a partnership between Blaenau Gwent, Caerphilly, Monmouthshire, Newport City and Torfaen councils, has released a new multilingual allergen resource for food businesses in Wales, England and Northern Ireland to help protect the estimated two million plus people living with a diagnosed food allergy in the UK.

The resources are freely available for use by all local authorities in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

The resource includes:
• an allergen awareness presentation video in English, Welsh, Bengali, Cantonese, Kurdish, Mandarin, Punjabi, Turkish and Urdu and now available in Romanian, Hungarian, Bulgarian and Polish
• a handout covering the presentation key messages in each of the languages
• dubbed and subtitled versions in the 13 languages of ‘Day in the Life of Chloe’ and ‘Megan’s Story’ (originally produced by Lancashire County Council)

The presentation which lasts approximately 1.5 hrs covers:
• food law enforcement
• food hypersensitivities and the reactions people can have to them
• what it is like to live with a food allergy
• 14 allergens required to be declared by law and the allergen information legal requirements
• food labelling rules for food prepacked for direct sale (Natasha’s Law’) which came into force on 1 October 2021
• allergen management
• the potential consequences when things go wrong

Embedded within each presentation is ‘Day in the Life of Chloe’ and ‘Megan’s Story’ in the appropriate language.

Aims of the project are to:
• make allergen training material accessible to a wider audience
• increase awareness of food allergies as a serious health issue and help educate about the potentially life threatening nature of the condition
• inform Food Business Operators of allergen labelling requirements including changes brought about as a result of ‘Natasha’s Law’ which came into force on 1 October 2021.
• alert Food Business Operators to the potential consequences of getting it wrong
• raise allergen legal compliance amongst Food Business Operators
• promote the importance of a positive food safety culture and the supply of safe food that consumers can trust

Please note: All of the resource videos can be found on the CTSI YouTube channel including trailer videos and separate videos for the case studies in the 13 different languages

Social media

Under each language below you'll find social media resources that can be downloaded to share on your social channels to help raise awareness about food allergen labelling requirements.