Food Allergy Awareness for Catering

“Does this have nuts in it?” It sounds like a simple question. Get the answer wrong and it can cost a customer their life. That is the weight sitting behind every allergen conversation in a food business, and this course is about carrying it well.

For someone with a serious allergy, eating out is an act of trust. They are relying on the people who make and serve their food to get it exactly right. This course gives you what you need to be worth that trust: what the 14 allergens are and where they hide, what the law asks of you, how to keep a kitchen clear of cross-contact, and what to do in the minutes that matter if a reaction starts.

Who it’s for

Essential for anyone who prepares, handles or serves food, and for the people who manage them:

• Chefs, kitchen staff and food preparation workers
• Front-of-house, waiting and counter staff
• Food retail workers, bakery and deli staff, and childminders
• Managers and supervisors responsible for allergen management
• No previous training needed to start

What you’ll come away knowing

• The difference between a food allergy, an intolerance and coeliac disease
• The 14 major allergens UK law requires you to declare, and where they hide
• Natasha’s Law and PPDS, the labelling rules, and how to give allergen information accurately
• How to keep allergenic cross-contact out of the kitchen and front of house
• How to recognise anaphylaxis and respond, including the use of an adrenaline auto-injector (AAI)

How the course works

Six focused lessons, each broken into short topics with a quick practice game to make the ideas stick. The lessons sit inside three modules, and each module closes with a 10-question assessment pulled at random from a larger bank, so no two attempts look the same (80% to pass, three attempts each). At the end comes a final exam: 20 questions drawn from a pool of 40 across the whole syllabus. Pass it, and your CPD-standard certificate, complete with your name and a verifiable reference code, is issued instantly and saved to My Account → Certificates.

Access runs for 12 months, on any device, with your certificate ready to download the moment you finish.

Worth being clear about: this is a knowledge-based awareness course. It supports good allergen-management practice, but it doesn’t replace your business’s own written allergen procedures, your Safer Food Better Business pack, or a formal food safety management system where one is required.

Course content

• Welcome & how this course worksLesson
• The Science: Allergy, Intolerance & CoeliacLesson
• Food allergy: an immune system in overdriveTopic
• Intolerance and coeliac disease: not the same thingTopic
• 🎮 Practice: Allergy, intolerance or coeliac?Topic
• The 14 Major AllergensLesson
• The 14 you have to declareTopic
• The allergens you don’t see comingTopic
• 🎮 Practice: Is it one of the 14?Topic
• Module 1 Assessment — The Science & the 14 AllergensQuiz
• Natasha’s Law & LabellingLesson
• Natasha’s Law and what PPDS meansTopic
• Prepacked, PPDS and everything elseTopic
• 🎮 Practice: Is it PPDS?Topic
• Supply Chain & CommunicationLesson
• It starts at the back doorTopic
• Front of house: the last lineTopic
• 🎮 Practice: Handling an allergy at the tableTopic
• Module 2 Assessment — Legislation, Labelling & CommunicationQuiz
• Controlling Cross-ContactLesson
• Cross-contamination is not cross-contactTopic
• Cleaning that actually removes allergensTopic
• 🎮 Practice: Safe practice or cross-contact risk?Topic
• Anaphylaxis & Emergency ResponseLesson
• Spotting anaphylaxis fastTopic
• The emergency response, step by stepTopic
• 🎮 Practice: The anaphylaxis emergency sequenceTopic
• Module 3 Assessment — Cross-Contact & Emergency ResponseQuiz
• Course summary & what nextLesson
• Final Exam — Food Allergy Awareness for CateringQuiz