Celery counts. Strawberry does not.
Kitchen3 min readHACCP Certificaat Online
Allergens belong to HACCP because they are a hazard with a name. Not spoilage you can smell, but something that can make a guest acutely ill. In the EU, fourteen allergens must be declared. Not eight, not a list the business makes up. The test question is sometimes exactly that number, and sometimes a trick question: strawberry, black pepper and sugar are not on it. Celery is.
The fourteen
- Cereals containing gluten
- Crustaceans
- Eggs
- Fish
- Peanuts
- Soy
- Milk
- Tree nuts
- Celery
- Mustard
- Sesame seeds
- Sulphur dioxide and sulphites
- Lupin
- Molluscs
On a printed menu you mark them. With a daily special or at a canteen counter, staff must also be able to say it, or look it up, without shouting to the kitchen and guessing. ‘I don’t think there are nuts in it’ is not an answer.
The board after the mustard
Mustard is an allergen. A dry cloth over the chopping board does not remove it. In the test, the right follow-up is to clean it thoroughly, or take a clean board. The same goes after raw meat, for a different reason: there you also wash your hands before touching anything that goes straight onto the plate. Two hazards, two actions, neither of them for show.
Allergen management that only works on paper and disappears during the rush is the kind of gap an inspection finds without a thermometer. Temperatures are a different chapter: 11 degrees at the door.
The course itself, with pricing and the test, is on the homepage.