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/