A GROUP is on a mission to make Bude the UK's first ‘allergy safe town’.

Safe Serve Flags is hoping to make Bude a safer place for those with allergies by encouraging local hospitality businesses to work together to improve awareness.

The initiative was born out of local cafe, Rosie’s Kitchen, after the team experienced first hand the challenges of managing allergy orders in a busy hospitality environment.

Sarah Cross, director of Safe Serve Flags explained: “What started as a simple visual system in our own restaurant is now being used by hospitality businesses across the South West. We have also recently presented the system to the leadership team at Allergy UK as part of ongoing discussions around improving allergy awareness within hospitality.”

The system sees customers notify their server of their allergen, from here the ticket is labelled with a coloured sticker in the kitchen, notifying the entire team of the allergy. Finally, once the food is prepared safely, the meal is topped with a coloured and labelled flag, identifying it as being free from the specified ingredient.

Sarah says that the goal of the initiative is to bring the town’s food and drink providers together in a commitment to improve communication surrounding allergies and ultimately make diners feel safer while enjoying what Bude has to offer.

“One of the most encouraging pieces of feedback we've received since launching the initiative is from allergy sufferers and their families telling us they would be more likely to visit Bude if they knew there was a town wide commitment to allergy awareness and clear communication,” said Sarah. “This is huge for Bude hospitality and tourism.”

The organisation states that while the flag system as at the heart of the plans, this is only a small part of the overall vision of the initiative.

“Food allergies can be one of the biggest challenges hospitality businesses face,” Sarah continued. “Miscommunication between customers, front of house teams and kitchen staff can lead to mistakes, complaints, reputational damage and, in serious cases, life-threatening incidents.

“Safe Serve Flags was developed from our own experience operating a busy hospitality business in Bude. We wanted a simple, accessible and affordable system that could be implemented quickly, helping businesses reduce the risk of allergy related errors whilst giving staff more confidence when handling allergy enquiries.”

With this, the team want to make Bude the country’s first ‘allergy safe town’.

“Our ambition is to make Bude the UK's first Allergy Safe Town by bringing together cafés, restaurants, pubs, hotels, coffee shops and catering businesses under one shared approach to allergy communication and risk reduction,” she said.

“The real benefit of the Allergy Safe Town initiative is consistency.

“If participating hospitality businesses across Bude are all using the same visual allergy communication system, staff become familiar with it, customers begin to recognise it, and the potential for confusion or miscommunication is significantly reduced.

“For customers and families living with food allergies, it creates greater confidence when choosing where to eat, knowing that participating venues are using the same recognised allergy communication system.”