New restaurant training aims to eliminate food allergy incidents

Two years after a Sherbrooke waiter triggered a police investigation after mistakenly serving salmon tartare to a diner with a seafood allergy, a new online training program is rolling out to help restaurants identify potential problems.

The program, a collaboration between Allergies Québec and the Quebec restaurant association, will be online as of March 21. It’s aimed at servers, cooks and restaurant managers and has content tailored for each of those roles.

“We noticed by visiting restaurants and listening to customers who live with food allergies that there was not enough tools for the restaurants to receive those people in a secure environment,” said Dominique Seigneur, spokesperson for Allergies Quebec.

Currently, restaurants have no legal obligation to adopt a standard protocol for handling food allergies. An estimated 300,000 people in Quebec suffer from food allergies.