Food Allergy Topics To Discuss With Your Event Caterer

Coming up with a menu for your catered event can be a fun experience, but you should be mindful of what food allergies some of your guests may have. If there will be a lot of people attending your event, it's almost certain that some of these individuals will be allergic to different foods. While it might be impractical to contact each of your guests in advance to determine their allergies, there are some steps that you can take to ensure that everyone has something safe to eat. Here are some topics that you'll want to cover with your catering professional.

Safe Options

Because you can expect that lots of your guests will have different food allergies, it's courteous to include some "safe" options on your catered event's menu. You can do so by asking your caterer to prepare some dishes that are devoid of the most common food allergens. This list includes wheat, milk, soy, nuts, and more. Any experienced caterer should have no trouble producing certain items that don't contain any of these common allergens, and these dishes can be popular among those who have to be careful about what they eat.

Ingredient Labeling

At catered events, it's common for many dishes to have labels that identify them. In general, these labels will list the name of the food and perhaps a few of the key ingredients. As another courtesy to your guests who have food allergies, talk to your catering service about producing labels that list all of the ingredients for each dish. Your guests can peruse the options, assess the ingredient lists, and choose foods that will be safe for them. Having ingredient labels will prevent your guests from having to inquire about the ingredients in each dish, which is simpler for both the guests and the catering service employees.

Dedicated Space For Dishes

Another idea to discuss with your catering service is creating a dedicated space for safe dishes that are devoid of common allergens. For a buffet-style setup, you might have a couple of tables with the dishes that most of your guests will eat, and a separate table for the items that are safe for people with allergies to eat. The physical separation of these items will help to prevent cross-contamination. For example, if a dish with nuts were next to a safe dish, a guest may inadvertently use a serving utensil with the nut dish and then use it in the safe dish — potentially introducing traces of nut to the safe dish. This would obviously be a concern for someone with a nut allergy.

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