Costa drink death: Allergy training must be better, campaigners say

The death of a 13-year-old girl who died of a hypersensitive anaphylactic reaction after drinking a Costa Coffee hot chocolate should be a “wake up call” to all food companies, campaigners say.

Hannah Jacobs had a severe dairy allergy and died within hours of sipping the drink bought by her mother in February 2023 – despite making staff aware of her daughter’s allergies.

An inquest found there had been a “failure of communication” between the coffee shop staff in Barking, east London, and Hannah’s mother Abimbola Duyile.

The parents of Natasha Ednan-Laperouse – who died in 2016 from an allergic reaction to a Pret a Manger baguette – and Hannah’s legal team have urged government action to protect people with food allergies.

“It is not even common sense to legislate for every scenario,” Nadim Ednan-Laperouse told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

“However, what should happen is an understanding and appreciation of food allergy by society in general – including businesses that are involved in food and drink – needs to really up the ante.

“Only through that and through behavioural change in effect can people be kept much more safe around food allergies.”

The inquest into Hannah’s death heard at the time of her reaction, allergen training for new Costa staff involved a series of online modules that could be accessed at home and a quiz which trainees had to pass.

In her conclusion, assistant coroner Dr Shirley Radcliffe said: “The root cause of this death is a failure to follow the processes in place to discuss allergies combined with a failure of communication between the mother and the barista.”

Costa Coffee said it had listened to everything the coroner has said and will assess any further reports.

But, speaking outside East London Coroner’s Court following the inquest into Hannah’s death, her mother accused the food industry of treating allergen safety training like a “tick-box exercise”.

Ms Duyile said: “Having heard all the evidence over the last week it is clear to me that although the food service industry and medical professionals are required to have allergy training, this training is really not taken seriously enough.

“Better awareness is needed in these industries and across society of the symptoms of anaphylaxis.”

After their daughter’s death in 2016, Nadim and Tanya Ednan-Laperouse set up the Natasha Allergy Research Foundation and campaigned for the change in law after a food labelling loophole left Natasha unaware the baguette she ate contained sesame seeds.

Mr Ednan-Laperouse agreed with Ms Duyile’s analogy that “tick box” training is “not going to work with the millions of people who have food allergies”.

“I think it is fair to say that big companies like Costa certainly like to do the right thing – nobody gets up in the morning in the food and business industry anticipating causing harm to their customers.

“However, what this situation highlights is the kind of training that is employed across the whole sector is not up to scratch,” Mr Ednan-Laperouse told BBC Breakfast.

“It has clearly let down a family in this case and probably let other families down but we might not be hearing about it in the public sense at the moment.

“I think this needs to be a real wake up call for these industries and these sectors to look again at how they can really improve their understanding of allergy certainly for staff and the way they train their staff.”

Michelle Victor, who was part of the legal team for Hannah’s family at the inquest, said there is an issue around “proper education around allergy management” adding that training “must be put in place and policed”.

“There needs to be a dedicated approach to allergen,” she told the Today programme.

“We need the government to sit down and focus their minds on this issue. It is important we have that joined up.

“I think the most important thing for us is that all food businesses need to understand how important it is that when they give their staff training that they trust their staff understand the training and they know the consequences of the failure to follow it.”

A Department of Health spokesperson previously said: “Our deepest sympathies are with the family and friends of Hannah Jacobs, and all those impacted by this case.

“Department officials have been in ongoing discussions with the Natasha Allergy Research Foundation about improving support for people with allergies and ministers will carefully consider their views and any recommendations made by the coroner.”