Match Day Eats: The Importance Of Allergen Labelling In Stadia

Zoe Richards, business solutions director at Trustwell discusses how facilities managers working in Stadia can ensure better food literacy for their visitors, ensuring food safety is upheld to the highest of standards while serving delicious, varied food options for all dietary needs.

When managing events at stadiums, whether it’s a match day or a live concert, visitor safety is the number one priority. Their security is paramount, with new legislation around large venues having more enhanced security due to start in 2024.

But what about the things that security guards can’t protect visitors from?

Food and drink allergens are a large part of many peoples’ lives that we don’t see, with an estimated 10 per cent of the UK population suffering from a food hypersensitivity. A bad allergic reaction can cause serious harm to health and in very extreme cases death. Over the last decade various instances of incorrect or non-visible labelling which has led to allergy death have made our headlines include Natasha Ednan‑Laperouse in 2016.

Since, there have been major shifts and changes from the Food Standards Authority on how we label food and how allergens are handled to ensure better public safety. With many stadiums offering grab and go snack options during events such as match day pies or fast-food kiosks, ensuring it is clear to visitors what is in their food before they purchase it is vital for their safety.

Accurate, Up-To-Date Labelling

Clear ingredient statements and allergen declarations are essential because consumers, now more than ever, want and need to know what’s in their food. There are several ways to provide allergen information, depending on the type of food being produced and the most practical method for the business.

Due to the significant health risks involved, regulatory bodies set clear expectations for food companies regarding standardised Food Nutrition labels, ingredient statements, allergen declarations, and other packaging claims. Using new technology-based information sharing systems about potential ingredient changes and impacts to allergens allows stadium servers to always have the up-to-date information available when asked about food allergens.

When customers are using grab and go food kiosks, ensuring items are clearly labelled with ingredients and relevant allergens is essential for the food vendors in your stadium to adhere by. Not only will this help those with the relevant allergens or food intolerances, but it also helps others make informed decisions about their food choices. For the facilities manager at the stadium, accurate labelling like this is likely to decrease the risk of an allergen-related incident to occur during major events, saving the stadium money and risk to reputational damage.

Better Education

While having the correct physical labels printed and ready to go is part of the process, ensuring stadium staff are educated on the importance of allergens best practice is also a key factor. In the likely situation whereby your stadiums catering is run by a third-party provider, these initiatives and training examples can be included in your calls for tender when looking to partner with a contract caterer, ensuring best practice is upheld.

The first simple step is to ensure food workers have been given the right knowledge about allergens, where they are present, and how to help a customer if asked. When working with third-party caterers, agency staff are typically zero-hour contract workers. Ensuring allergen training is part of their core on-boarding and that this is updated and maintained throughout their employment is key.

Additionally, all staff from on the ground food servers to senior teams should be educated on the potential risks of allergens and why it should be taken seriously. For someone to fall ill in the stadium from poor labelling or communication not only impacts the person significantly, but it can also cause huge disruption during events.

All these scenarios can all be stopped by ensuring clear accurate, and accessible labelling is used across all foods and beverages at your stadium, managing a better, safer experience for all.