• 70% have missed school because of their food allergy.
• 63% say food allergies negatively affect education.
• 1 in 3 parents have considered home-schooling due to safety concerns.

This data is from The Natasha Allergy Research Foundation, the UK’s food allergy charity, which surveyed 1,000 people nationally, including parents of children with allergies. 

With 67% of school staff not receiving allergy awareness training, there is reason to be concerned as a parent of a child with allergies and also as part of a school catering team. (A NASUWT survey in collaboration with Natasha’s Foundation). 

The survey uncovers a range of issues for school children, including being excluded from school dinners due to contamination risks or being bullied about allergen threats. Some schools organised activities featuring allergens risking safety, while others put children in contact with allergens for weeks, and there were even delays in contacting parents or carers when an allergic reaction happened.

Should a School Allergy Policy be mandatory?

The results of the survey clearly demonstrate inconsistent policies, a lack of staff training, and an understanding about the impact of allergens on children’s education. Of course, many schools are doing a great job, but without compulsory regulations, education and even lives could be at risk.

With the Government’s Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill in its final stages, they see it as time to ensure the law protects children and young people with food allergies. They want every school to create a clear Allergy Policy and train staff in food allergy awareness, day-to-day allergy management, and emergency response.

Take the first step towards being a safer school for all 

Don't let the children using your school canteen become part of the 70% missing out on their education. Ensuring your kitchen is compliant with clear, accurate labelling is the first step in building a culture where every child feels safe enough to learn and every parent or caregiver is confident to send their kids to school. 

How LabelLogic Live can help with allergen labelling in schools

Clear, accurate allergen labelling is a vital step in protecting your school students and reassuring the school leadership team. That’s where our food labelling software, LabelLogic Live comes in. It streamlines the process for school kitchens and caterers and automates safety, ensuring compliance with Natasha’s Law and preparing you for future legislation.

With LabelLogic Live, you can:

• Automate compliance: highlight allergens in bold as required by law
• Update labels in real-time: if a recipe changes or a supplier swaps an ingredient, update your entire menu’s labels in seconds.
• Eliminate guesswork: built-in validation checks to reduce human error in busy kitchens.
• Build trust: maintain consistent labelling across all school meal options to reassure parents and empower children to choose their meals with confidence.

This labelling software allows your team to create clear, accurate, well-presented labels quickly, cost-effectively and consistently. It’s all online, there’s no need to buy any expensive hardware and there’s no additional costs for adding nutritional or allergen information to the labels. And with dedicated technical support on hand, your school catering team can create allergen labels with confidence. 

Our customer's view - Petroc College

One of the many LabelLogic Live success stories is Petroc College. They were given an early demo of our labelling software back in 2020 ahead of Natasha’s Law. Paula Young, Catering Support Administrator told us:

“The legislation had a huge influence on how we needed to set things up in the new school year and seeing the software gave us that kick start we needed. We had a lot of software companies contacting us, but LabelLogic Live was so user friendly and low cost, it fitted our requirements, meaning we didn’t need to look elsewhere. 

"It’s really easy to use. For example, if I was building a sandwich product (in the software) - I select the code for the bread, the code for the butter, and the code for the filling - it’s as easy as that - and I know it’ll be correct. At the end of the day, it gives me peace of mind and that’s what this is really about”.

See LabelLogic Live in action

With LabelLogic Live, kitchen staff can work efficiently, school administrators can demonstrate duty of care, parents and caregivers feel reassured - and most importantly, children with allergies can participate fully in school life. Take action now to make your school a safer place for every child and get ahead of any new legislation. 

Start your free trial today and see how LabelLogic Live could help your school protect students and meet all allergen labelling standards.