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Experts have spoken of the need for Guernsey and Jersey to bring in stronger safeguards to help protect those with food allergies.
The Channel Islands' first ever food allergy conference took place yesterday morning at St Helier’s Town Hall.
The event was opened by organiser Dominic Jones of the newly formed Jersey Food Allergy Group and owner of Jersey's JP Restaurant brand, attracting more than 100 delegates.
Keynote speakers Nadim and Tanya Ednan-Laperouse addressed the conference with a powerful speech about the diagnosis and experience with their daughter, Natasha, who had multiple food allergies.
They went on to discuss the circumstances leading to Natasha dying of her food allergy on a flight from Heathrow to France in 2016, after she consumed a baguette that had one of her allergy triggers, sesame, as a hidden ingredient.
Pictured: Natasha Ednan-Laperouse.
The coroner in Natasha's case identified a food law loophole, which allowed prepacked foods to bypass proper ingredients listings, as a key contributing factor to her death.
Natasha's parents then engaged in a fervent campaign to get the legislation changed, which resulted in 'Natasha's Law' enacted in 2021.
This has formed an important part of UK allergen legislation, making eating out a safer experience for those with food allergies.
JFAG wants to see legislation brought to Jersey to bring it into line with the UK.
Dr Vicky Carre, Healthcare Group GP and Allergy Lead, attended the conference from Guernsey.
Guernsey also lacks allergen legislation and Dr Carre is currently undertaking local research to examine the impact this has on those with food allergy locally and explore and inform the need for change.
"Today's conference has highlighted the increasing numbers of food allergy diagnoses and what this means for a large number of our population," said Dr Carre.
"Living with a potentially life-threatening condition like food allergy means having to risk assess everything you eat.
"That has a massive impact on quality of life and the basic safeguards are not in place in Guernsey to help these people manage their condition and to keep safe.
"This needs to be change - for the sake of keeping visitors to our island safe who come over and assume they'll have the same protection as where they came from, and also for the sake of looking after our own population."
Pictured: Nadim and Tanya Ednan-Laperouse
Mr Ednan-Laperouse strongly put the case forward for wanting to see the same safeguards in both islands.
"It's only right that the two islands afford the same level of public protection, because if they don't, there's a great risk something will go wrong as happened with my own child, my own daughter, a fatality."
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