Can I Eat There?

 

Members of the Can I Eat There? team promoting their website at The Allergy & Free From Show in London. From left to right: Nicky Granger, Scott Muncaster and Ali Harper.

Photograph: Federica Tedeschi

Dining out is going to be easier for the over 10 million people in the UK with food allergies and intolerances.

The answer is Can I Eat There?, the first and only restaurant directory with customisable allergy menus, where people can search for an eating place by location or cuisine, completely free of charge.

Nicky Granger, Managing Director and founder of the website, spot a gap in the market, driven by the necessity to guarantee her young child a safe environment while dining out with the family.

“I think restaurants are fantastic. I love food, I love the social environment, but it is very sad that parents are scared to take their children to eat out and that adults with food allergies are frankly scared to eat out too,” said Ms Granger.

Her young son, Gabriel, was diagnosed with nine severe food allergies following an episode of anaphylaxis caused by cow’s milk when he was eight months old.

“My son has had anaphylactic reaction, so it is scary and you don’t take it lightly but it doesn’t change the fact that all my life I’ve loved eating out. 

“There are restaurants a lot brilliant for people with food allergies but you got to work very hard to find them and in the process you get  a lot of rudeness, quite often people don’t have the time to talk to you, and I got very frustrated by this. So, I decided that if nobody else was going to do it, I would create a website that collected all the restaurants in the UK, their allergy policy and their allergy menu, so that people could search by using the allergy filter,” she explained.

Nicky Granger also mentioned about some of her adult acquaintances who had an anaphylactic attack while eating out. They have given up restaurants and if really want to join their friends, they pack a lunch box.

“I just think it’s sad and there are places that are prepared to cater for people with food allergies,  even though this is not their main focus. So let’s make it easier for people like me to find them,” she added.

Going into more details about the Can I Eat There? website, Ms Granger said:

“We launched 3 months ago and have 12,000 restaurants on our directory. Over the next year we have set us the target of getting every single eating place that we can find on the site.  It’s a team of five of us working really hard and dealing with people who are in the hospitality industry and provide us with their restaurant database.”

This enthusiastic team really seems to have the backing of all the right people, as well.

“We also liaise with Allergy UK, which is the nation’s allergy charity, and luckily enough, they have recently decided to work in partnership with us while launching a national accreditation for restaurants, The Allergy Aware Scheme. Their goal  is to train and accredit those restaurants across the UK that have the gold standards,” she added.

Being a team of facilitators of information rather than allergy experts, they have spoken to Dr.  Adam Fox, one of only a handful of UK doctors with recognised higher specialist training in Paediatric Allergy and have also gathered information from specialist allergy dieticians.

“Our partners are there, they are growing all the times. We are working with Free From Eating Out Awards, which was launched last year. Entries for 2015 are just opened, restaurants have to be dutiful and prove good allergy control. We don’t say which restaurants are the best, the experts decide,” said Nicky Granger.

Can I Eat There? website is free for both users and the restaurants. There is however, a strategy for monetarisation and potential sponsors have already noticed the website. Consequently, the future looks rosy for Ms Granger and the rest of the team.

“Restaurants will be able to pay for extra services which will allow them to address people with food allergies directly.

“Over the last couple of weeks the very first advertisers have approached us, which is no bad after three months. I didn’t expect the advertisers being much interested yet and they are.  So, we have a good chance of making pretty good  on that side,” she added.

However, the website’s creator stays really focused on the quality of her work and has promptly stated that if they don’t have the restaurants across the UK pretty covered in a year’s time, people can say that they failed.

Ms Granger presented her website Can I Eat There?  at the Speaker’s corner of the Allergy & Free From Show held in London last weekend.

Allergy & Free From Shows are events full of food and drinks, skin/hair care, household items and more for people having food and/or chemical allergies. The programme also includes cooking classes, talks, expert advice and kids activities, all ‘free from’ and all dedicated to help people improve their lives. The event was first run in 2009 in London and since 2012 more locations have been added.

For further information on this project, please  visit http://www.canieatthere.co.uk/

For further information on the Allergy & Free From Shows, please  visit http://www.allergyshow.co.uk/

Step-free access to London

Image from: www.pixelopera.com

Good news for passengers with reduced mobility: 50 per cent of all Transport for London underground and rail stations (Tfl) will have lift access by 2018.

Boris Johnson has recently declared that Tfl, which is both the third largest underground in the world and the third busiest one in Europe, is outstripping New York and Paris in providing disabled tube access.

The Mayor of London had earlier promised to make half of all tube stations step-free by the end of 2020.

However, the target has been brought forward to 2018, as 45 per cent of the 270 stations served on the network have already had their access improved.

Step-free entry and exit means there are no steps between street and platform level, making stations fully accessible to people who are unable to use stairs.

Such amelioration is not only vital for those experiencing either temporary or long-term walking problems, including wheelchair users, as people travelling with luggage and/or young children can benefit from it, as well.

At present there are 430 escalators and 167 lifts on the whole 249 miles London Underground network and 19 stations that only use lifts, against 12 only using escalators.

“London has one of the most accessible public transport networks of any major city, but (….) there is much more to be done to unable more people to get around the capital more easily,” Boris Johnson said.

The next station to have access improved will be Brent Cross, with the help of an extra £76m step-free partnership fund announced by Mr. Johnson last year. This considerable amount of money is expected to cover the renovation costs of eleven more stations.

Deflation doesn't mean we have all become rich

 

Image from: www.themoneyalert.com

Less than a month ago Britain officially went into deflation for the first time since 1960; it all happened after the inflation had surprisingly dropped to zero in March.

The Consumer Price Index, which measures the cost of household bills and goods, fell to -0.1 per cent in April, mainly caused by a plummeting world oil prices, with the cost of motor fuels down 12.3 per cent and a discount war at supermarkets. A fall in food prices of 3 per cent, in fact, has been driven by high competition among big chains.

Chancellor George Osborne has promptly dismissed fears that economic growth was stalling, by declaring the country was not facing a damaging deflation.

“Instead we should welcome the positive effects that lower food and energy prices bring to households when wages are rising strongly, unemployment is falling and the economy is growing,” he said.

Such a scenario should primarily have a beneficial impact on the economy by boosting consumers’ confidence through increasing purchasing power and people should take this opportunity, as the Bank of England expects inflation to rise again towards the end of the year.

However, deflation does not turn poor people into wealthy citizens.

According to data released last month by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), in 2013 around 4.6 million people, equivalent to 7.8 per cent of the UK population, were considered to be in persistent poverty. Those who experience such a difficult situation have been in relative income poverty both in the current year and at least two out of the three preceding years.

Further data revealed that almost a third of the UK population suffered through poverty in at least one year between 2010 and 2013; 19.3 million people, in fact, had a disposable income of maximum £9,525, which falls below the official poverty line.

Far too many people live on minimum wage, as well.

Chris Philp, a newly-elected Tory MP for Croydon South, has recently declared that “it is not possible to live on the current national minimum wage, especially in London,” and has asked the Low Pay Commission to recommend rises in the national rate, with London having a separate higher fixed amount.

According to the MP,  the increase would not only help people towards a more comfortable life, it will save public money, too. In fact, many families are currently having their low earnings topped up with tax credits. And if there is one thing we can be sure of, is that taxpayers are “subsiding companies who are not paying their staff properly”.