The Allergy Issue
“P.F. Chang’s bows down to people” with food restrictions, says Alison St. Sure, whose Sure Foods Living Web site aims to increase awareness about food allergies and celiac disease.
Doing so, however, requires a lot of energy, resources, and knowledge, says P.F. Chang’s head chef Gregg Piazzi. For one thing, allergens and other potentially harmful ingredients aren’t always easy to spot.
“So many ingredients have so many different names,” Piazzi says. “Wheat has a thousand different names. Gluten has a thousand different names.”
Other challenges include cost—“I think the smaller restaurants could be hampered,” Piazzi says—and menu complexity.
“If you’re serving hamburgers and fries and that’s pretty much it, it would be pretty easy to make it happen,” he says. “For the Cheesecake Factory concepts of the world, who use so many items, it could be very difficult.”
Despite the challenges, there are several reasons restaurants may want to accommodate customers with dietary limitations, simple appreciation being one. While most people dine out to relax and avoid having to cook for themselves, these customers find that going out to eat is often very stressful. This is why they are so grateful when they do find a restaurant that can serve them tasty, non-life-threatening fare—the epitome of comfort food.
“It’s heartwarming,” Piazzi says. “I get standing ovations and I’m not even the one responsible.”
Of course, there is another, more material, benefit to running an allergy- or celiac-friendly restaurant: customer loyalty. With relatively few establishments catering to customers with dietary restrictions, those that do can expect to draw steady business from an underserved market—comprised of not just the 12 million Americans with food allergies, but their family members as well.
“The allergy kid determines where the family is going to eat,” says St. Sure, whose daughter is allergic or intolerant to at least seven common ingredients. “So restaurants aren’t just serving that one customer. They’re getting four loyal customers.”
The industry needs to recognize that “there’s business to be had,” St. Sure says. “Restaurants are underestimating how important it is for families to feel safe.”
The exception that proves the rule, P.F. Chang’s has profited from its status as a safe haven for the allergic and intolerant. In the three weeks after rolling out a gluten-free menu in February, the chain saw a 140 percent jump in sales of gluten-free items year over year in participating locations.
“I’m happy we’re ahead of the curve on this one,” Piazzi says. “It is really a captive audience right now.”
Along with increasing business, going allergy-friendly could, in the long run, cut costs by lowering insurance rates, Tsai says.
“That’s one of my hopes for the Massachusetts legislation,” he says. “If you become designated an allergy-friendly restaurant, hopefully insurance companies are going to say, ‘Hey, they’ve actually reduced their liability. They’re not going to risk cross-contamination and getting someone sick, or worse, killing someone. Let’s lower their insurance.’”
Tsai says this is what happened after more restaurants became certified through the Training for Intervention Procedures (tips) program designed to prevent drunk driving and other alcohol-related liabilities.
Then, too, the industry was reluctant to adapt, he says.
“No one likes change, but now everyone looks at TIPS training as a godsend,” Tsai says.
Change appears to be coming again to the restaurant industry. With the Massachusetts legislation set to take effect next month, other states may indeed decide to follow suit and enact their own allergy-awareness bill.
“This will be national within three to five years,” Tsai says with confidence.
Jordan Melnick is QSR's online exclusives reporter.
