A boy’s near-fatal allergic reaction to ice-cream has led to one of the largest fines for a food offence involving allergies in Australia, and spurred his mother to campaign for major reforms to the restaurant and catering industry.
A magistrates court in Melbourne this month fined a catering company $55,000 for serving Robert Surace, eight, a frozen dessert that a waiter “guaranteed” was dairy-free. It was in fact vanilla ice-cream.
Sandra Surace and her son Robert, eight, who almost died after eating ice-cream. Photo: Penny Stephens
The “frightening and enduring experience” has led Sandra Surace to call on the food service industry to overhaul its practices for handling allergy requests.
“My son was violently ill and is still undergoing psychological trauma,” she said.
“A loss of life, severe illness or brain damage cannot be overlooked due to someone’s negligence to follow correct procedures or simply understand [allergies].”
Robert was at a wedding reception in April when he went into anaphylactic shock after a lick of the ice-cream.
The family, from East Bentleigh, advised the venue of his allergies multiple times before the event, and during the night intervened when waiters served Robert pasta with parmesan cheese and steak with gravy. In the car on the way to hospital he felt as though he was being choked, welts and hives began to erupt on his body and his eyes and lips ballooned.
The magistrate convicted The Manor on High in Epping of breaching Victoria’s Food Act by “falsely describing” food, with the knowledge the consumer could “suffer physical harm”.
The case has intensified calls by allergy sufferers for the restaurant industry to take their condition more seriously.
Allergy and Anaphylaxis Australia president Maria Said wants the introduction of a nationwide allergy management plan and compulsory allergy training for restaurant staff.
“Some food facilities have absolutely no idea what the legislation is,” she said. “That puts allergy sufferers in a dangerous situation.”
But the industry’s peak body, Restaurant and Catering Australia, rebuffed the calls, saying an agreement struck last year between the catering group and the allergy group, through Food Standards Australia New Zealand, was enough to reduce risk.
I was worried if that was going to be my last day.
It required restaurants to know ingredients and handle customers’ allergy queries, said chief executive John Hart. “Our only responsibility is to serve customers the food they order.”
Robert’s reaction was so violent that when he vomited, it poured through his nose. For weeks afterwards he suffered stomach pains and refused food to the point he became iron deficient.
“I was worried if that was going to be my last day,” he said. “People need to understand allergies. It’s not our choice … I’d like to eat everything but I can’t.”
Manor on High owner Gezim Oxha said within a month of the incident, employees were retrained, the manual updated and new protocols enforced.
“Every special dietary meal is now prepared by a dedicated person responsible for these special dishes and the dishes are marked with a coloured flag so that a mix-up of dishes cannot occur,” he said.
“We have served over 4 million meals in the 25 years that the manor has been in our control and this was the first time that an incident has occurred.”