Podcast

Transcript

Joshua Miller (00:18.55)

All right, everyone, welcome back to another episode of the 5 in 20 podcast by Remarkable Academic Foods. I'm your host, Josh Miller, where we have at least another five or so questions in 20 something minutes. And today's topic is food allergies, which is so, so important in School of Food Service K -12 and colleges and universities. It's everywhere. And it's definitely an important topic to make sure we're staying on top of as things advance in the food allergy space. And today we have Betsy Craig, CEO of Menutrinfo.

Betsy is the nation's leading expert on food allergies, menu labeling and certifying products and facilities as free from allergens. As the CEO and founder of Menutrinfo LLC, she and her team are dedicated to helping food service operators protect lives and health every day. Very, very important information, obviously, and their crew is responsible for menu nutritional information affecting, get this; over 100 ,000 restaurants, allergy training for hundreds of thousands of individuals throughout the US and Canada, with well over a thousand colleges and universities using their ANAB accredited program, and providing product transparency to today's food allergic consumer. All important work and great, fantastic work. Thank you, Betsy, for taking the time to come on and hopefully you all stay in tuned for this episode. I'm sure you are all affected by this. And so staying in this episode give you some knowledge bombs dropped your way.

Betsy, thank you for taking the time to join on this episode. And it's a pleasure to have you on, especially after having the opportunity. I'm so grateful for being able to be on that speaking panel at the Food Allergy Safety Summit a few months ago here. And I'm so glad to have you on.

Betsy Craig (02:16.91)

Great to be here, Joshua Miller. Thanks for speaking on that panel and joining us in beautiful College Park, Maryland for that event. Super awesome to see you there.

Joshua Miller (02:24.726)

Yes. Yeah, that was amazing. Amazing event. So to get things started, just a quick icebreaker question for you. What is your favorite restaurant?

Betsy Craig (02:36.174)

My favorite restaurant? Probably the last one I went to that was great. I went to a phenomenal fish place last night down here in, I was in Dunedin, Florida and went to a place called Frenchies and had fish grouper, fresh grouper that blew my mind.

Joshua Miller (02:38.07)

Yeah.

Joshua Miller (02:57.046)

Love it. Love it. I had actually funny enough the last time I was in Florida, I had grouper at a restaurant. my goodness. It's so good. So good. Awesome. Well, to get things started in terms of people that may not understand who you are or menu, trampled taking a dive into that more, but obviously who are you? And instead of talking about Menutrinfo which I did in the intro, let's talk about what got you started with Menutrinfo. Why did you start it up?

Betsy Craig (03:02.382)

It's fresh here this time of year.

Betsy Craig (03:22.51)

So I am a PTA type mom who got a great idea off of Facebook. A friend sent me a message on Facebook about menu labeling coming for restaurants. And I was like, no idea what that is. Looked it up. I've been in and around food service my whole life. So it was a really natural fit to go sell to and create a service business for food service.

Joshua Miller (03:39.03)

Mm -hmm.

Betsy Craig (03:49.966)

but the allergy piece came along in the first year of our business. so we were tagging allergens inside menu items for restaurants. That was how we began. And very quickly, I was like, we need to teach people about what food allergies are. We need to teach people why this matters. So we still do as a company, we still do nutrition information. You bet. We're, we're nutrition partners with a lot of good brands.

But really our sweet spot and what we've become known for is handling food allergies, helping people manage food allergies and food service and CPG, consumer packaged goods now.

Joshua Miller (04:28.598)

Awesome. Awesome. And that's, it's so amazing, like the work that you're getting into, and it was so, so needed. And I remember when I first got introduced to food allergies, and obviously I took it seriously, but I didn't know where to start. And, you know, years ago there wasn't a whole lot of resources for it. And, and obviously what you guys are doing is helping with that. So let's talk about food allergy safety. Why is it so important?

Betsy Craig (04:45.454)

Yeah, it's huge.

It is.

Joshua Miller (04:57.942)

for those that are just getting new to this because there are people that haven't been still exposed to that and the seriousness of it. So why is it important? Why should they take it so seriously?

Betsy Craig (05:09.038)

Well, you know, I recently heard a statistic I completely believe. One in every four diners needs a special dietary accommodation, mostly because of intolerances or food allergies. So 25 % of consumers that are showing up on college campuses, in K -12s, in restaurants, can't eat a certain thing because it makes them sick. And with food allergies, it could make them dead. Like not just sick.

Food's supposed to be love. We're not supposed to hurt each other with food and nobody wants to hurt anybody with food, but mistakes happen, ignorance happens. We need to, bottom line, it's a place where we need to do inclusion for all, regardless of what the dietary needs are. We need to serve everybody at the table. If we can't, then we shouldn't be serving anybody at the table, in my opinion.

Joshua Miller (06:01.078)

Absolutely. And I do believe that statistic actually, you know, seems like, you know, towards the end of me getting in like caterings and even I got involved in one camp and the number of people with allergies was it just kept going up, up and up. So I absolutely believe that number for sure. And, you know, for me, especially some chefs, again, not knowing or food service directors not knowing that road. One of the first things I tell them, if they don't know it and if their team doesn't know it, even worse, right? To help them understand the importance of it, bringing in someone that is actually experiencing food allergies to speak with them, I think is huge. Because that was the turning point for me. When meeting with a student and knowing...how it affected her when we were not preparing the food correctly. It was an intolerance. So it wasn't an allergy, but still just as important. And hearing that impact on her day -to -day life instantly changed my mindset and it forever changed my outlook on it. So what are some misconceptions that you hear about with food allergies? I'm sure there's a lot that you encounter in your world.

Betsy Craig (07:01.006)

Yeah.

Betsy Craig (07:10.734)

Yep. Yep.

Betsy Craig (07:17.422)

That's a great question. First, I just want to tell you, just comment for a second on what you just shared, Joshua Miller. When it's personal, when it becomes personal, you don't forget it. So I'm glad this student was able to touch your heart with it. And like I said, food's supposed to be love. And that's what we want to do is feed people, make them happy. So yay. Misconceptions are so many, but they're getting better. So the education and educating people on what food allergies are.

Joshua Miller (07:38.326)

So true.

Betsy Craig (07:47.118)

and what intolerances are is helping us educate the industry. When we started AllerTrain was the first allergy gluten -free training course in the country. And our course, AllerTrain branded course was the first accredited course. There's now seven other kinds, all accredited for food allergies. So what's happening is we launched it to get rid of some of those myths, some of those misconceptions like, you can cook out the allergen. Like the person with food allergy is just weak. Go ahead and give him a little, he's just being a wuss or she's just being a baby. I've heard those statements. You know, people just don't know what they don't know, but they're scared to say, I don't know. Better to just go full head into it and act arrogant. And that is a problem.

That is absolutely a problem. And that's a problem I went about to try to change back in 2011. And I'm still trying to change. I'm trying to change it through the food code. I'm trying to change it through education. I'm trying to change it through certification on packages. I'm just trying to change it.

Joshua Miller (08:55.638)

Yeah. Yeah. And that food allergy safety summit really opened my eyes to the work that you are doing. I didn't realize how deep you dove into food allergy advocacy in so many different ways. Like, so yeah, you're right. You can't just solve the problem in one part of the industry. It has to be a holistic solutions across the board for all agencies, all stakeholders and every level of food service. So.

Betsy Craig (09:14.038)

Right. 100%. Yeah, that is very correct. So.

Joshua Miller (09:24.726)

In terms of training, it's something that was shared actually. So a lot of states require food allergy training. Not all of them, I believe, at this moment, but it is coming down the pipeline. Is that correct?

Betsy Craig (09:38.542)

Back in 2012, I put something in for the Conference of Food Protection to change our food code to mandate training. It's taken a long time to see training come into the food code, but as of December 28th of 2022, the 2022 food code does call out mandated knowledge for food service providers. It doesn't require a set training course, but it says people have to know these certain things. So I didn't get my way, but I got part of my way.

I'm not done fighting either, but that's cool. And so some states require it, like Illinois, everybody in the state of Illinois, you're in food service, one manager at all times, an ANAB accredited training course, boom. Montgomery County, Maryland, same thing. So there's this starting this patchwork across the country of states, municipalities that require it. We also have legislation that's hit the books after the death of a child.

I think of Elijah and what Thomas has done to advance training in pre -K, in daycares, because his son was tragically taken from this world in November, seven years ago, because he ate a grilled cheese sandwich at daycare three days into a brand new daycare, even though they knew he had a dairy allergy. The person that made the grilled cheese didn't understand it was dairy and he did not make it. So his father has become a huge advocate for training and epinephrine and pre -K, you know, that was in a, in a daycare that was owned by the city of New York. And, Thomas has gone on to take a horrible, horrible, horrific tragedy. Nobody ever wants to experience. And by the way, the woman that served his son, I'm sure is never going to be the same. And they have taken this to be advocacy about training.

Joshua Miller (11:26.934)

my goodness, no.

Betsy Craig (11:31.63)

for pre -K for foods you're serving in daycares for kids that can't say no, they don't, they're three years old, they'll wait what's in front of them.

Joshua Miller (11:37.174)

Yeah, they have no idea. They can't advocate for themselves yet. So, wow. And that's a whole other topic in terms of students advocating for themselves. And some ways that people are going about that is with surveys, which I think.

Betsy Craig (11:41.486)

Right.

Betsy Craig (11:46.734)

Yeah.

Joshua Miller (11:54.358)

Sometimes there's misconceptions on, we can't find out what allergy students have because of HIPAA. And it's like, that's not necessarily the case. There's ways to get that information and capture it without violating that. And it seems that food allergies are actually protected in terms of being able to share that information. And is there any concerns or any best practices that you want to give to schools that are still in that mindset?

Betsy Craig (12:01.678)

Hmm.

Betsy Craig (12:12.398)

Yes.

Betsy Craig (12:17.902)

So for colleges still in the mindset that you can't share because of HIPAA, especially when you're doing entrance forms for students, put on there where you have to check a box if you don't want your food allergy shared with the dining. That way the default is this information is shared. And believe it or not, that really makes a massive difference. The other thing is a lot of students want to try to manage it on their own when they hit 18 and they hit school and they finally get outside the home which sets them up for what could be failure, you know, in proper eating and nutrition. Under 18, the rules are different in schools, and they need to be different in schools because you are taking care of the, even though they might be taller than you in high school, you are taking care of that youngster who's 18 or under, or under 18 in your care.

Joshua Miller (13:12.342)

Yeah. And that's, that's definitely big information to know in terms of that automatic checkbox of, you know, it's automatically shared unless you check that box and you don't want it shared. So that's definitely good information for them. And in terms of entity law, I want to talk about this because this blew my mind when I first read it and was through the Menutrinfo program. I was like, what is this? And I started like, I was like, this existed.

Betsy Craig (13:24.302)

Yep.

Betsy Craig (13:31.182)

Yeah, it does.

Joshua Miller (13:41.206)

And I had no idea. So let's talk about entity law. What is it?

Betsy Craig (13:46.774)

So the idea is that in this day and age, we can have epinephrine, which is the medication that helps reverse anaphylaxis. Anaphylaxis is when you eat a protein you're allergic to and your body starts to go into full -blown anaphylaxis reaction, meaning you're getting ready to die. Your heart's gonna stop. You might not be able to breathe. There's a whole bunch of reactions that people recognize. When that happens, people generally need epinephrine, either through a pen, an inhale device we're working on, they're working on an inhale device, they're working on a device that you can actually snort through your nose and inhale it that way. But some type of medication, administered in any different way, the medication into your body. The generic epinephrine and entity laws are all about you can have an epinephrine device in your facility that is not attached to a student or not attached to a specific individual, but more so attached to the building. Think in terms of like an AED or Narcan on the wall to help save a life. Same concept, same idea. Here's where it gets kind of funky. You need a prescription for epinephrine.

So somebody has to do a couple of steps. They have to get a little bit of training. It's pretty simple training. They have to do documentation and get a prescription and get the prescription filled. However, there's plenty of people out there that can walk you through the process. It's about a 10 step process. If you go step by step to go from start to finish and have it on the wall.

Joshua Miller (15:32.374)

Yeah, and it totally clicked in my mind when I heard that I was like, yeah, you're right. We have the AEDs everywhere. And so why don't we have this? And unfortunately, the entity law is not in all the states. It's only, is it only in 35 of them, I believe?

Betsy Craig (15:46.798)

I think it's 35 as far as that goes. It really hit the K -12 hard. We had a lot of advocacy from families and parents with students with food allergies. Here's the challenge, and I'll just put one more statistic out there, is that they say about 25 % of people with food allergies don't even know they have a food allergy till they're sitting at the table and eat something and start to react. So the first incident of food allergic reaction can happen without the person's knowledge.

Joshua Miller (15:59.286)

Mm -hmm.

Betsy Craig (16:16.782)

And even with older adults, it's happening because they never were allergic to shellfish and all of a sudden they are, and nobody knows why. So if they don't have, they wouldn't have an epinephrine pen on them or a obi -cube device on them. They just wouldn't even need it. And then all of a sudden they have a reaction. They needed something instantly.

Joshua Miller (16:29.526)

Mm -hmm.

Joshua Miller (16:36.918)

Yeah, that can be very, very scary. Luckily, I do not so far have any food allergies, but I do have family. I have plenty of family with some allergies and it can be scary, especially even my son, you know, having little reactions to something all of a sudden that he was totally fine with as an adult. And that can be scary, especially if it can go south really fast. Yeah, and going back to the, I'm gonna...

Betsy Craig (16:47.438)

Thank you.

Betsy Craig (16:53.39)

Yeah.

Betsy Craig (17:00.238)

Absolutely.

Joshua Miller (17:03.926)

back up a little bit when I was going into the aspect of surveying students that are in the schools and getting to know what allergies are there. The reason why I think it's so important, and this is speaking from the back of the house perspective, is coming into the school year, right? And you have all your menus set, you have all your recipes together, and everything's...

Betsy Craig (17:18.83)

Yeah.

Joshua Miller (17:29.334)

Fine. Until all of a sudden, one weekend, two weeks in, three weeks in, the dieticians are getting hammered. And all of a sudden, you know, there's an uptick in, let's say, soy allergies that year. And your menus have soy all over it. So now you're reacting. Now you have to backtrack and figure out what ingredients can you swap or what recipes need to be altered. And that's just one example, one allergen. But, you know, it can catch you off guard really fast.

Betsy Craig (17:41.614)

Please. Please.

Yeah.

Betsy Craig (17:54.894)

Yes. Right. Right.

Joshua Miller (17:59.158)

in terms of your menu development before the school year even starts and you don't even know it's happening. So being proactive, getting that data beforehand is a huge helping hand. And I didn't have that resource at the time and I wish I did. And I'm advocating for more schools to take part in that just so that they can be in front of things because not every school is going to be the same. Like one school just told me that corn is a big allergy for them, which I had no idea.

Betsy Craig (18:25.454)

Corn is a massive allergy. Yeah, corn is a massive allergy. We just had sesame come on as one of the top nine. But as I was sharing a couple of days ago at a conference, the path work to get sesame declared as number nine was laying down the framework to declare additional allergens down the road. And I would not at all be surprised if corn gets identified soon. And Joshua Miller, to your point, if schools...

Joshua Miller (18:28.982)

No idea.

Joshua Miller (18:34.198)

Right.

Betsy Craig (18:56.174)

note what allergens are present in the menus they're developing, then when they get those gotchas, then they're a half a step ahead. And no, soy is in everything. Corn is in everything. Absolutely everything. Holy cow.

Joshua Miller (19:08.118)

Yes. High fructose corn syrup and corn starch. I think that for the longest time, I considered corn starch like the holy grail of being able to get around allergens. And now you're saying that that's potentially not going to be the go -to. So yeah, yeah. And especially high fructose corn syrup. I mean, that's in all the major...

Betsy Craig (19:18.858)

Yeah.

Betsy Craig (19:25.55)

Yeah, it's going to be interesting.

Joshua Miller (19:35.126)

beverage brands, especially too, right? So are we going to have to start looking at alternatives for that? Who knows? Who knows what's coming down the pipeline with that? So in terms of policies, so let's say a school really hasn't done much with accommodating food allergies, whether it's menus, whether it's recipes, whether it's getting in front of students that have allergies and trying to work with them.

Betsy Craig (19:35.31)

Yes.

Betsy Craig (19:42.062)

Right. Yeah.

Joshua Miller (20:03.446)

But most importantly, before we even get to that, what's more important is the safety of being able to prepare safe food when it comes to allergy accommodations. So let's start with probably not only training, but also policies, right? So what kind of policies should they be looking to have in place if they're going down that road where they need to have more accommodations?

Betsy Craig (20:12.398)

So great question. Policies need to start from the loading dock on. So how are you ordering food? How are you tagging allergens in the food you're ordering? How are you putting some?

Joshua Miller (20:37.11)

Mm -hmm.

Betsy Craig (20:41.614)

the prep together, how are you managing your recipes? How are you tagging allergens in your recipes? Then are you putting allergens together on say a salad bar? Or are you using, and we've been using this trick for years, where everything is allergy free up until the dressings and then past the dressings are the egg and the cheese and things that are just straight allergens. There's ways to, and so policies around each one of those steps.

Policies around how to handle an incident response, policies around how students are fed. Do we have a peanut -free table or do we let students sit everywhere and do everything? Can students have access to wipes so they can wipe down their own space so that anything left from the lunch period before or whoever sat at that table before them is not gonna be a problem for them? There's a lot of different pieces and moving parts.

It's why somebody like yourself is invaluable to a facility because you can walk in with a fresh set of eyes, understanding about allergies and help them develop all of those policies, help them get it all dialed in so that they can be successful from loading duct to tabletop.

Joshua Miller (21:56.95)

Yeah, yeah, you're absolutely right. It starts at the loading dock and actually in my argument, even a little bit before that. So it's what is the policies before you even order the food, right? Are your order guides restricted? And we say restricted order guides and chefs, you know, they go crazy because they want to order whatever they want, whenever they want. But it's not just the cost, right? It's also the safety. And it's

Betsy Craig (22:11.47)

Right.

Yes, yes, that's so true.

Joshua Miller (22:26.71)

It's those food allergies. Yes, your main broadliner has three different, actually, I went through this, three different French toast brands, at least, right? But even on a restricted order guide, there were three different French toasts and all had different allergens in it. So I had to restrict the restricted order guide even further so that our actual menus labeling was correct because, you know, that's... Yeah.

Betsy Craig (22:36.43)

huh. Right.

Betsy Craig (22:52.846)

Or you tag for all of them.

Joshua Miller (22:56.694)

Well, and that was another thing. If there was any substitutes, right, because people had to be aware of that, we have a substitute. What's the policies when there is a substitute at the back dock? Does your receiver segregate it? Does he notify? Does he reject? Yeah, there's so many different obstacles that really need to be considered when it goes into making a safe allergy -friendly environment.

Betsy Craig (23:01.006)

Right.

Betsy Craig (23:07.822)

Absolutely.

Betsy Craig (23:12.302)

Right. Right on.

Joshua Miller (23:24.022)

So you mentioned, you touched on it very shortly there. So peanut free zone, allergy free zone in schools. What are your thoughts on that? Yay or nay to that?

Betsy Craig (23:27.338)

So I don't love peanut free tables, but I understand the need for them. You know, I equate it when, when people get all up in arms, because peanut butter has been taken out of schools, I equate it to smoking and

Joshua Miller (23:37.206)

Okay.

Betsy Craig (23:52.334)

People used to lose their mind when no smoking was allowed in buildings, but the truth is you can smoke outside, you can't go outside and breathe and come back in and eat. And so it's the same kind of idea. But we can't do nothing but restrict. So some are easier to not have service of in a facility versus others. So doing away with peanut butter, doing away with tree nuts.

Joshua Miller (24:03.222)

Mm -hmm.

Betsy Craig (24:18.158)

is a lot more manageable in schools or a pizzeria or a number of different kinds of environments versus doing away with soy or doing away with dairy. And because you can't get rid of some of those other major allergens anywhere near as easy. And by the way, I'm not an anti -peanut butter human. A lot of our colleges that are certified free from peanuts and tree nuts do have single service of a pod of peanut butter.

for somebody to be able to get it, but it's outside the serving line. It's on purpose, it's closed, there's a way to do it safely so everybody can eat and everybody can be safe. I love certified free from on dining facilities in dining areas so that there's safety for the allergy human as well as everybody can be together.

Joshua Miller (24:55.574)

Yep. Absolutely.

Joshua Miller (25:12.982)

Yeah, and good to know you're not anti -peanut butter. I'm not sure if we could be friends if you were.

Betsy Craig (25:16.27)

I am a peanut butter girl. I'm lucky. I like peanut butter and I don't have any allergies either, but you know, but many, many do.

Joshua Miller (25:25.59)

If you are ever back in upstate New York, there is a bakery in Saratoga with the best chocolate peanut butter cake ever, ever, ever, ever. It is so addicting. So it's good to know in terms of your thoughts on that. And you're so right. It's, it's, and from my perspective also inclusivity, you're almost calling out the students and that's kind of against inclusivity.

Betsy Craig (25:33.654)

Stop! Awesome!

Betsy Craig (25:51.342)

Yeah. It makes them a target. It makes them a target. I was at a K -12 recently talking to parents and unfortunately some kindergartners were targets. And it's like, how can that happen? They can't help their allergies. How can that happen? So working with the school on just full inclusion, just full inclusion, equity.

Joshua Miller (25:54.198)

and a social aspect way, right? Like now you, yeah.

Joshua Miller (26:08.022)

Mm.

Joshua Miller (26:14.742)

Yeah, so true. And on another note, I mean, the innovation in manufacturing products, not like even naturally, right? Manufacturing of products that are allergy friendly alternatives is really just made so many jumps over the past years. And I'm so excited to see it happening because it was really tough in the beginning when you didn't have very many options for alternatives.

Betsy Craig (26:27.694)

Yeah.

Betsy Craig (26:34.446)

Yeah. Yeah, you just didn't have any choices.

Joshua Miller (26:44.63)

It was, nope, this is your soy sauce. Exactly. It was, nope, this is your soy sauce. No other option around it. Or even sesame oil. There's getting into international ingredients, right? You can find an alternatives for sesame oil even. So it's mind blowing the innovation that is available and out there to help accommodate food allergies without sacrificing quality or creativity, which is, I also think, important.

Betsy Craig (27:07.278)

Right.

Betsy Craig (27:12.334)

Yep, absolutely. Yep.

Joshua Miller (27:14.71)

Awesome. Well, Betsy, this conversation was fun for me. I think a lot of powerful information was in this, and I hope that the audience took away some pointers from this as well. And where can people go to connect with you or learn more about Menutrinfo if they're interested?

Betsy Craig (27:31.95)

Well, I'm real public on LinkedIn, Betsy Craig. Go ahead and connect with me there. The company is called MenuTrinfo and it stands for Menu Nutrition Information, all mashed up. So menutrinfo.com, M-E -N -U -T -R -I -N -F -O .com. And there's a contact us page if we can help in any way. But honestly, Joshua Miller, I think you're their best option. I would go to you. I would go to you with your knowledge, being a chef.

as well as everything you've learned about food allergies and your passion. I think you're a great resource for the industry and I'm thrilled to be connected to you and I'm thrilled to do more with you. Thank you for having me here today for this super important topic you know I'm passionate about.

Joshua Miller (28:18.294)

Absolutely. And thank you for that. And hey, I'm not perfect either, but my motto is always keep learning, right? No matter what. So, you know, more resources is better than just one resources. Two brains are better than one. So absolutely. Awesome. Well, thank you everyone for tuning in for another episode of the Five and Twenty podcast. I hope you've got tons of value out of it and make sure you reach out to either myself, Betsy, if you need.

Betsy Craig (28:30.158)

Right on. Sounds good, sir.

Joshua Miller (28:43.894)

And if you just want to extend the conversation, just in general, to learn more about food allergies, we're absolutely open to that. So until next time, I'm your host, signing off.