Allergens

We are here to help you cater for customers with allergies and intolerances safely.
  • Bidfood Direct

    Various tools to help you manage recipes, labelling and replacing ingredients

  • Our expert team and advice centre

    On hand to offer support for allergens and answer product related queries

  • Products and suppliers

    A range of products without allergen containing ingredients and suppliers to choose from

Bidfood Direct

Discover our free MyRecipes and Menu Planning tool

MyRecipes and Menu Planning allows you to create recipes and menus based on your agreed product range and pricing. Each recipe will display clear and easy to understand allergen icons, a full written breakdown of the allergen information, nutritional data and traffic lights.

Bidfood product information is automatically updated so no need for manual uploads, making it easy for you to maintain your recipe’s allergen profiles.

Bidfood Direct

We help you remain compliant with Natasha’s Law

To support you and your business when it comes to Natasha’s Law and the Calorie Labelling England Laws, we have developed a feature in our Bidfood Direct MyRecipes and Menu Planning tool that allows you to generate a download which will enable you to easily create labels for your recipes.

We can also provide a full end-to-end labelling solution via Bidfood Direct in partnership with DayMark, which enables you to create recipes, generate and print a label using the DayMark labelling system in just 5 simple steps, to support you in making compliant labels.

Learn more
    Bidfood Direct

    Easily manage allergens at the click of a button

    Our innovative feature in Bidfood Direct allows you to easily replace your manually added ingredients in MyRecipes with products supplied by Bidfood. This can alleviate the stress of manually maintaining allergens and product information and provide support with automatic updates of Bidfood products.

    Learn more

    Advice from our expert team

    Safe prep when catering for customers with allergens

    The importance of catering for allergens

    For your equipment – make sure you are using separate utensils, keeping chopping boards segregated and have clean down procedures for each. Make sure you don’t claim to be gluten free if you still handling wheat flour in the kitchen and cant remove the risk of contamination through segregation of time and space. If you need to use the fryer for gluten free dishes, make sure this fryer is for gluten free products only, and have one for fish and one for meat.

    Ensure all ingredients are stored in a sealed and labelled container to avoid confusion, and have a look to see if your spillage policy is updated and in one place.

    Making sure all menu change allergens are up to date for staff to use and being aware of menu allergen changes are also essential. As well as making sure the staff training in the kitchen and front of house is all up to date – have a designated person on each shift that knows about any changes or allergens, and provide thorough kitchen training so staff know how to avoid cross contamination.

    Finally, don’t forget about the garnishing! Always check allergens that may be present in those, and make sure they are listed within the allergen list on menus.

    A food allergy is when the body’s immune system reacts to a certain food, believing it is under attack. Many allergic reactions can be mild but in more serious cases this can cause an anaphylactic response in the body, which can be life threatening.

    Around two million people in the UK have been diagnosed with a food allergy, and 600,000 with Coeliac Disease1, an autoimmune condition which attacks your own tissue when you eat gluten. This means that it is likely we all know someone with a food allergy or Coeliac Disease or another form of food hypersensitivity, like a food intolerance, which is less serious than an allergy but can still cause someone serious discomfort.

    Eating out of the home environment can cause anxiety and fear for those with a food allergy, Coeliac Disease or a food intolerance. From the planning of where may be safe to eat, having conversations with the staff before and during their visit, navigating their food options and ensuring they feel safe that the food they are having is suitable for their dietary needs, it can be a lot for someone to manage. Especially for someone with a serious food allergy.

    This is why it’s so important to embed safe procedures and practices for the preparation and communication of allergens in your catering environment. Not only to ensure allergens are being managed appropriately and safe food is provided but also to give that much needed reassurance to the consumer.

    1. Food.gov.uk
    Contact us about allergens

    Advice Centre

    Our Advice Centre is also here to help our customers with any questions about our products.

    Contact them for:

    • Allergen information or gluten free product list
    • Products that are suitable for specific dietary requirements
    Get in touch
    oliver kay

    Natasha's Allergy Research Foundation We're passionate about supporting research into allergies

    Natasha's Allergy Research Foundation (NARF) want to make allergy history and bring much needed awareness to allergens and change the lives of those living with them.

    We are passionate about supporting them as a charity, in particular their research, and as a result are proud to be a founding partner of their Clinical Trial.

    Read more on Natasha's Law
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