Allergen Control Plans: Overcoming challenges in a high risk, high profile educational institution in Boston (50m Lecture)

Schools, hospitals and other institutions face extreme challenges with not only medical issues and high risk populations, but also fighting to protect individuals from adverse health effects from food allergens and intolerances. This presentation discusses the work that was done with Perkins School for the Blind, a residential facility in Boston, MA, in developing an Allergen Control Plan for their foodservice operation, as part of their HACCP system.

Perkins School for the Blind is unique in that they have a diverse student population with wide range of severe developmental disabilities, including visual, audio, and neurological factors. A high proportion of students (20%) exhibit extreme food allergies and sensitivities, and caring families who wish to implement additional food strategies for their child. Perkins School has a student to staff ratio of 1:1 for these reasons.

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Challenges arise from having one central kitchen and storeroom, 5 satellite kitchens that prepare meals for multiple cottages and residential houses. Other issues include a myriad of staff with direct food contact- cooks, teachers, aides, maintenance workers, parents. Many students require pureeing of foods, potentially with contaminated blenders and equipment. Behavioral issues of students ("flying foods") also pose cross contamination threats in the dining room. We also discovered unexpected ingredients in products, unaware teachers, cross contact risks during service on buffets, and risky storage procedures.

The presenter developed an Allergen Control Plan for the school. Staff were trained on reading labels, recipe evaluations, safe substitutions, preventing cross contact during preparation, transport, service. We implemented Allergen specific Standard Operating Procedures, Record-keeping methods, and provided Allergen Control Kits to the foodservice staff. These kits contained equipment, labels, signage, kitchen tools that help prevent cross contact and encourage proper procedures school-wide.

Essential components of an Allergen Control Plan will be shared with session attendees. They will experience label reading and recipe exercises, to show the difficulty of identifying ingredients in products and verifying safe products from processors, in spite of FDA labeling requirements. There will be an Allergen Control Kit demonstration, showing how specific tools are used to help food workers prevent cross contact during preparation and service.