Just one week after Pret A Manger’s food labeling was deemed “inadequate” following the death of a 15-year-old with a sesame allergy who ate a baguette, the company has confirmed a second death linked to a sandwich.
In December 2017, a customer bought a dairy-free “super-veg rainbow flatbread,” from a store in Stall Street, Bath, according to BBC.
However, testing conducted by Pret and “two independent authorities” showed that yogurt in the product contained dairy protein, according to a statement the company released via Twitter on Sunday.
Pret said “their deepest sympathies are with the family and friends of our customer in this terrible case and we will look to help them in any way we can.” The company adds it “stopped selling all affected products” and is “in the process of taking legal action” against the yogurt company, Coyo. The Food Standards Agency (FSA) was informed and Coyo products were recalled.
Our statement about today’s news. pic.twitter.com/ybG868LojD
Coyo is “a coconut milk brand which is stocked in shops and supermarkets across the UK,” according to the BBC. In February it recalled its dairy-free coconut yogurts after they were found to contain dairy, reports the outlet.
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In a statement released via Twitter on Sunday, Coyo denied blame for the Pret A Manger customer’s death.
“The claims made by Pret are unfounded,” it said. “The dairy-free product we provided to Pret in December 2017, at the time of this tragedy, is not linked to the product we recalled in February 2018. The product recalled in 2018 was made with a contaminated raw material that was only supplied to us in January 2018. Pret’s inability to provide us with a batch code, despite several requests, has severely limited our ability to investigate this further.”
Pret has been under scrutiny for inadequate product labeling following the death of 15-year-old Natasha Ednan-Laperouse in July 2016. She fell ill on a flight from London to Nice, France, after eating an artichoke, olive and tapenade baguette at Heathrow Airport, which seemingly had sesame baked into the crust rather than lying on top of it. The teen had a sesame allergy and died later of anaphylactic shock, a UK medical coroner said last week, according to CNN.
“As a family now of three, my wife, son, and I are still trying to adjust to life without our beloved girl,” Ednan-Laperouse’s parents said in a statement. “It’s a daily battle and the pain is indescribable.”
Pret Chief Executive Clive Schlee responded on Twitter, saying the chain was “deeply sorry” for her death and hoped the tragedy would “set us on course to drive change in the industry so people with allergies are as protected and informed as possible.”
Our CEO @cliveschlee has announced that we are committing to labelling full ingredients, including allergens: https://t.co/iZSk0ZkRqS pic.twitter.com/gOcCNVtLr1
Pret will begin “a trial of full ingredient labeling” from November and in the coming weeks to ensure that “prominent allergen warning stickers are placed on all individual freshly made products,” per a statement provided to CNN. The company will also add additional allergen warning signs in shops.
From: Delish
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