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Pret A Manger has announced it is to label all products after a teenager fell into cardiac arrest after eating a baguette which did not list all ingredients correctly.
The company’s CEO Clive Schlee said he was “deeply sorry” when the company announced the labelling changes this morning (3 October). The chain is set to trial the fully labelled packaging from next month with a roll out planned as quickly as possible.
Schlee said: “I said we would learn from this tragedy and ensure meaningful changes happen. I hope these measures set us on course to drive change in the industry so people with allergies are as protected and informed as possible. Nothing is more important to Pret right now.”
An inquest into the teenagers death has already begun, with the coroner finding that she had been “reassured” by the lack of any mention of specific allergens on the packaging. Under current law takeaways and restaurants are only required to notify customers of the 14 most common allergies.
According to the UK’s Food Regulations 2014 food made and packaged onsite before sale does not have to be individually labelled. The incident led to the prime minister saying that the government would look at the food labelling responsibilities of individual companies.
