• ℹ️ Heads up...

    This is a popular topic that is fast moving Guest - before posting, please ensure that you check out the first post in the topic for a quick reminder of guidelines, and importantly a summary of the known facts and information so far. Thanks.

Food & Beverage: The Aramark Era begins

DistortAMG said:
If they cook all food direct to order, they legally are not required to mention ingredients.

If they cook burgers for no specific order and leave them in a hot shoot (I think they do on busy days) then they have to list the full ingredients. It is a weird loophole but the law is very clear on it. I would have thought it would be Alton Towers responsibility and not Aramarck, as they are selling food on behalf of Alton Towers, so compliance would ultimately fall with them.

It is part of what is now known as Natashas law. They can get hefty fines for not listing ingredients and or providing them when asked. Ignoring customers and requests will only serve to agitate the situation and potentially make any potential fine higher.
Click to expand...
Certainly last season when Natasha’s law came in force burger kitchen and Just Chicken labeled their products with ingredients. I’ve yet to try them just Aramark took over so not sure if they still do.
 
djtruefitt said:
Certainly last season when Natasha’s law came in force burger kitchen and Just Chicken labeled their products with ingredients. I’ve yet to try them just Aramark took over so not sure if they still do.
Click to expand...

I mean, it does raise the question though. Why are they not listing ingredients when they are legally required to? It is there as an extra factor of safety to save peoples lives. That was the whole point of the law.

That says to me that both Alton Towers by association and Aramarck specficially are putting profit above preventing putting people into potential life threatening situations, by showing a complete disregard for the law.
Laws that were desgined and came into force after some preventable deaths.

But it also raises the question, what crap are they putting into their food, so much so, they are willing to break the law for.

Alton Towers / Merlin absolutely need calling out on this.

They brought these people in, it is their park, they are responsible. To be frank, it is disgusting business practices from a company as large as they are. Who are just blowing smoke up peoples backsides at this point when Alton Towers are claiming the crap they are claiming about their food on the website.
 
Last edited:
djtruefitt said:
Certainly last season when Natasha’s law came in force burger kitchen and Just Chicken labeled their products with ingredients. I’ve yet to try them just Aramark took over so not sure if they still do.
Click to expand...

At a previous employer (a motorway services operator) at the time when the unfortunate incident with the Pret a Manger baguette that led to Natasha's Law happened, literally overnight it became an instant "Fail" on a mystery-shop if any catering unit could not list ingredients & allergens. All units that sold products without this information on the packaging were given booklets that had to be produced to enquiring customers fast. ahead of purchase of any products.

Obviously Natasha's Law is now law and the way different operators have responded to it is interesting. Some have the info on their menus, some on their Apps, some have touch-screens in their venues to get this information (or a combination of all 3 options). Practically every menu now carries an allergen disclaimer basically saying "we try to do our best to avoid cross-contamination, but cannot guarantee 100%".
 
DistortAMG said:
If they cook all food direct to order, they legally are not required to mention ingredients.
Click to expand...

The point is though they've made a definite effort to remove the promotional statement referring to the quality and provenance of their food. There is only one reason to do that, regardless of the legal requirement or otherwise to say what is in there, what they have effectively done is tell us what isn’t any more and ud love to see them put on the spot and explain why.
 
The ingredients won’t reveal what’s changed about the chicken products as they don’t need to specify whether it is chicken breast or chicken leg meat, they can just put “chicken” on the ingredients anyway.
Beef burger ingredients might show more as to the composition of the patty.
 
What did the sign say before? Is it’s removal not just designed to appear more vegan/vegetarian inclusive?
 
Not sure it's been mentioned but the old signs in the window have now been replaced with completely different ones. I'm surprised it took so long as anyone looking at the modified ones could easily infer that standards had slipped.
 
John said:
Not sure it's been mentioned but the old signs in the window have now been replaced with completely different ones. I'm surprised it took so long as anyone looking at the modified ones could easily infer that standards had slipped.
Click to expand...

What do the new ones say?
 
They've just removed the stickers that related to chicken and beef, and left the ones that were simply the Burger Kitchen logo or relate to coffee.
 
They probably say something like “contains real chicken” or “real beef” without actually stating how much content there is in there. Seriously Aramark is the worst thing that towers could have done.
 
In regards to meat this is what the law states about what you can say and minimum content:

Beef burgers must contain a minimum of 62% beef. Burgers are rarely ever 100% meat, as recipes typically call for additional ingredients, such as onion, egg, herbs and seasoning. Cheaper products will often contain other bulking ingredients, such as cereal; economy beef burgers need only contain 47% beef.

Retailers have sometimes used descriptions such as 100% to convey the claim that the meat element of a burger is of one type of meat only (e.g. 100% beef) as opposed to a mixture of meat species (beef + pork, for example). 100% claims have the potential to mislead customers if not qualified, so removing them avoids this.
There is no requirement that chicken burgers be made only from breast meat, unless a claim is made that it does. The minimum meat requirement for chicken burgers is 55%.
Food labelling legislation is more prescriptive for prepacked food. Burgers bought at a supermarket are required to include the % meat content to allow consumers to make informed choices. Burgers sold at a restaurants/takeaways are only required to meet the minimum compositional standards.
Click to expand...

So I imagine now the burgers might not just be beef, but maybe contain other meats or bulking agents.
 
So I’d we look at let’s say McDonald’s beef burger it’s got:

Beef Patty
Ingredients: 100% Pure Beef.
No additives, fillers, binders, preservatives or flavour enhancers. Just pure forequarter and flank. A little salt and pepper is added to season after cooking.

Interesting you say chicken burger just be minimum 55% because if we look at McDonald’s (53%) :

Coated Chicken Patty
Ingredients: Chicken Breast Meat (53%), Water, Vegetable Oils (Sunflower, Rapeseed), Starch, Allergen Ingredient: WHEAT Flour (contains Calcium Carbonate, Iron, Niacin, Thiamin), Allergen Ingredient: WHEAT Semolina, Maize Flour, Allergen Ingredient: WHEAT Gluten, Natural Flavourings, Salt, Allergen Ingredient: MUSTARD Flour, Potassium Chloride, Raising Agents (Diphosphates, Sodium Carbonates), Sugar.
Prepared in the restaurants using non-hydrogenated vegetable oil.
Potential Allergen Ingredient: N.B. May contain traces of milk and celery.


I’d like to compare these to the Aramark ones in terms of ingredients
 
djtruefitt said:
Has anyone eaten at burger kitchen or fried chicken this year to see if the products do have ingredient lists on them?
Click to expand...
I seem to recall that there was a label on my burger box (but it was veggie, so probably not very interesting for this debate).
 
Let's not confuse a full ingredients list with a list of allergen ingredients. They're not breaking the law by not telling you everything that's in the burger, as long as that stuff doesn't consist of known allergens. Perfectly legal as long as they provide you with allergen information (I presume this is on the menu's, touch screens and they'll have a big book somewhere as well) before you consume it. If they've ground down the cows hooves and chucked them in as well, I don't think they need to tell you about it unless it's an alergen.

Ask for the big book and see what they say? They may have the ingredients somewhere on request for you to view maybe?
 
Matt.GC said:
Let's not confuse a full ingredients list with a list of allergen ingredients. They're not breaking the law by not telling you everything that's in the burger, as long as that stuff doesn't consist of known allergens. Perfectly legal as long as they provide you with allergen information (I presume this is on the menu's, touch screens and they'll have a big book somewhere as well) before you consume it. If they've ground down the cows hooves and chucked them in as well, I don't think they need to tell you about it unless it's an alergen.

Ask for the big book and see what they say? They may have the ingredients somewhere on request for you to view maybe?
Click to expand...
Legally I think if it is packaged before you order it then it needs full ingredient listings. Even if it’s sat under hot lamp in a wrapper it needs all ingredients.
www.food.gov.uk

Introduction to allergen labelling for PPDS food

What businesses need to know about the changes to allergen labelling for prepacked for direct sale (PPDS) food, also known as Natasha's Law.
www.food.gov.uk www.food.gov.uk
 
jon81uk said:
Legally I think if it is packaged before you order it then it needs full ingredient listings. Even if it’s sat under hot lamp in a wrapper it needs all ingredients.
www.food.gov.uk

Introduction to allergen labelling for PPDS food

What businesses need to know about the changes to allergen labelling for prepacked for direct sale (PPDS) food, also known as Natasha's Law.
www.food.gov.uk www.food.gov.uk
Click to expand...
So, the way I read that, wrapping burgers before they are ordered is a no no and needs a full ingredients list like pre packaged food. If they packaged them after the order had been processed like McDonald's or Burger King then they're good to go just with the alergen information.

So I presume McDonald's for example would get away with not displaying an ingredients label on their fries even though they are regularly boxed up before being ordered because the box is open and the product can technically be altered without having to open anything as the cartons are open anyway?
 
Matt.GC said:
So, the way I read that, wrapping burgers before they are ordered is a no no and needs a full ingredients list like pre packaged food. If they packaged them after the order had been processed like McDonald's or Burger King then they're good to go just with the alergen information.

So I presume McDonald's for example would get away with not displaying an ingredients label on their fries even though they are regularly boxed up before being ordered because the box is open and the product can technically be altered without having to open anything as the cartons are open anyway?
Click to expand...
I think there are a lot of grey areas like the fries but I think a reasonable person wouldn’t expect to find the ingredients on them.
I did notice McDonalds apple pie does have ingredients on the pack now.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top