Massachusetts has more than 713,000 residents with potentially life-threatening food allergies. My son, Tripp, has a severe peanut allergy.
A few years ago on Super Bowl Sunday, Tripp’s 12-year-old son nearly died when a local restaurant mistakenly served him a dessert with peanut butter, despite Tripp having repeatedly informed the waiter that he had a peanut allergy. He was eventually rushed to the pediatric intensive care unit at Massachusetts General Hospital and thankfully survived.
Since then, I have been on a mission to improve our state’s food allergy friendly restaurant training laws.
In 2009, Massachusetts became the first state to pass a restaurant food allergy training law, but this law needs to be updated. Over the past three legislative sessions, I have worked with State Senator Cynthia Creem, State Representative Carmine Gentile, local nonprofit AAFA New England, and Food Allergy Research & Education to help pass commonsense, bipartisan legislation that would expand and update our state’s food allergy restaurant training law.
After two previous failed attempts, I am more committed than ever to passing the bill during the 2023-24 legislative session, and I am pleased that the Massachusetts Restaurant Association also recognizes the need to revise a nearly 15-year-old law. Together, we introduced H.2183/S.1338, “An Act to Increase Food Allergy Awareness,” in February 2023.
This new bill does two important things: it expands current law’s training requirements to ensure that at least one food allergy-trained restaurant employee is on-site, preventing gaps in coverage, and it requires staff to watch a new interactive, certified food allergy training video that highlights sesame, the most recently labeled allergen, and removes outdated information. To comply with the new bill, restaurant employees must pass the test at the end of the video and cannot skip the video.
It’s worth noting that Boroko has responded to this mistake by paying for food allergy awareness training for its staff, something that our country’s law doesn’t require.
By increasing the number of restaurant employees knowledgeable about food allergies and providing specific steps to prevent cross-contact with the top nine food allergens, the state can create a win-win solution for families with food allergies and the restaurants that want to serve us.
The bill currently heads to the Senate Ways and Means Committee, which should pass it immediately, so restaurants can be better equipped to safely serve the more than 10% of Bay State residents who have life-threatening food allergies.
Our children’s lives may depend on it.
Nicole Arpialian lives in Sudbury.
