Food Standards Agency allergy communication plans for 2020/21

Our ambition

At the FSA, we’re putting the needs of people with food allergies and intolerances at the centre of our priorities. Our allergy that communication plans are part of commitment.

Our plans for 2020/21 

In 2018/19 we ran ‘Easy to ASK’ – a consumer and business facing allergy awareness campaign. It urged young people to ‘ask about allergens’ and reminded food businesses of their legal obligation to allergy compliance.

Post-campaign research has enabled us to outline a strategy for our allergy communications going forward, which is to create separate campaigns to reach our audiences – food businesses and young people – in a more tailored and engaging way. 

Our Insight When it comes to allergy incidents, our insight shows that both these audiences feel complacent (“it will never happen to us”) and in a busy social environment, both feel the pressure of serving / getting served. To these audiences, this time pressure feels more immediate than the risk of having an allergic reaction. 

Our strategy

Our strategy is a three-staged approach to campaigning over the next two years, speaking initially to food business owner/ managers, followed by front of house staff and then young allergic consumers (16-20 year olds).

1.  Our approach for business owner/managers will be about ‘business consequences’[1]. This will be launching on 9 March 2020 in England, Northern Ireland and Wales. We want to increase food businesses’ knowledge of and compliance with the food allergen rules, normalise answering of questions about allergen ingredients and demonstrate the possible ‘business consequences’ of poor allergen management. We will be doing this via partnerships, trade media and social media to remind FBOs of their obligations under food law.

2. This will be followed in 2020/2021 by a ‘front-of-house’ campaign – encouraging this audience to empathise with the customers they are serving and to take requests for allergen information seriously.

3. And when food businesses are more prepared, a campaign targeting young people over the summer, at high pressured, ‘food to go’ environments, reminding them of the importance of asking for allergen information, no matter what the barriers.

We’ll be in touch soon

We hope this gives you a flavour of our upcoming plans. We’ll be in touch very soon to answer any questions and look for ways to support you with any allergen plans you may have.

Just let us know if you have any immediate questions:michelle@socialandlocal.co.uk or Joanna.Abishegam-David@food.gov.uk

Find out more HERE