North Yorkshire County Council is urging members of the public with known peanut allergies to be vigilant at all times and to seek assurances that meals bought from takeaway food outlets, restaurants or cafes are peanut free.
Following the recent fatality of a peanut allergy sufferer, North Yorkshire’s trading standards officers have been assisting police with their investigation into the supply of a curry from a restaurant in Easingwold. Trading standards has also carried out surveillance sampling of catering establishments from across the county following this case and ahead of changes to allergen labelling requirements in catering establishments next December.
Results of 47 formal samples of allegedly peanut-free takeaway meals show so far that more than a quarter of the meals were contaminated with peanut in varying degrees, some at fatal levels for allergy sufferers.
County Councillor Chris Metcalfe, North Yorkshire’s Executive Member for Trading Standards said: These are extremely concerning findings and we will be following up these sample tests with advice or further formal investigations. We cannot stress strongly enough that people with a known peanut allergy must be especially vigilant and must seek absolute assurances that the meals they have bought do not contain peanuts or traces of peanuts. For those affected by these intolerances it can literally be a matter of life and death.
Speaking to Perfect Pizza base in Harrogate: We use 100% vegetable oil for frying and for our pizza dough we use pure olive oil. No coconut or almond powder is used for any other cooking to ensure no cross-contamination. The only seed products we have is sesame seed in our burger buns. We also have separate pizza cutters for vegetarian and non-vegetarian unlike many other places I have seen.
