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Food & Beverage: The Aramark Era begins

Totally agree. Aramark have been a disaster for Merlin in terms of customer reviews. I’m still shocked they went with a company that has such a bad rep. It’s certainly put me off staying in the hotels or buying food in the park.

Unfortunately I don’t see them ditching Aramark this year - I would have thought the contract would be for a few years.
 
That is totally ridiculous, I've known a lot of people with dietary requirements (Vegan/Halal/Gluten Free) and to have absolutely no options is more than appalling! If you haven't brought food to a theme park you cannot let them starve, especially if people are going around on rides all day.

Aramark as a food catering company should absolutely know about their supply chains and, in theory (according to ecomomics), you'd expect them to have a lot more expertise than Merlin, being a food service company.

Get Aramark out.
 
Most likely a coeliac guest probably got served something with gluten in, so Arafail just decided to take the easy option and remove all "gluten free" options.

Not good at all.
 
When we had doughnuts at Alton towers last week they dealt with my nut allergy really well. They pro actively checked if there was an allergy (unusual in a non sit down context) weren't flustered by the answer and had the (legally required ) information easily to hand.

That may sound like a low bar but you'd be surprised how unusual it is for places to be as good
 
Unfortunately the introduction of Natasha's law in relation to food labelling of packaged goods and the related Owen's law for restaurant labelling seems to have had the opposite effect from that intended. The purpose of course was to make allergen labelling more transparent and give allergy sufferers greater reassurance and confidence ordering. In reality, the new rules are too fastidious and place so much risk on the provider that many are just washing their hands of it and not accommodating for allergen sufferers at all, leaving us no choice but to either starve or risk eating potentially unsafe food at our own risk.

A few providers, including a number of chain restaurants, have gone above and beyond to provide good information and ensure that food is prepared safely. In the theme park industry Paultons seem to be leading the field and Aramark-run establishments are sadly rock bottom. For an organisation of the size and reputation of Merlin it just isn't good enough. In a setting where choice and competition are nonexistent you have a duty to provide essential services to all your guests and that includes feeding them. If they have made a mistake, they need to learn from this and improve, not opt to discriminate against a huge chunk of the population.
 
Sounds like if AT made the mistake, they've sorted it and are back to providing food as @That Guy said above. This just sounds like Warwick CBA which is even worse.
 
That makes no sense on so many levels. Providing vegan food is significantly different endeavour to offering food suitable free from different allergens.

In many cases, vegan and vegetarian food are entire menu items - to just stop offering all vegan items is not only a bizarre approach, but highly unlikely. Have they just stopped offering salads? Or are they now making sure they lather all their greens in lard for good measure?
 
Squiggs said:
That makes no sense on so many levels. Providing vegan food is significantly different endeavour to offering food suitable free from different allergens.

In many cases, vegan and vegetarian food are entire menu items - to just stop offering all vegan items is not only a bizarre approach, but highly unlikely. Have they just stopped offering salads? Or are they now making sure they lather all their greens in lard for good measure?
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It really doesn’t make sense which is why I questioned it. They were doing coffee with soy milk so an improvement on fireworks however it’s nice to have some cake with that coffee or even some sort of pasty/sausage roll type thing?
 
Poisson said:
Sounds like if AT made the mistake, they've sorted it and are back to providing food as @That Guy said above. This just sounds like Warwick CBA which is even worse.
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Sadly it’s not restricted to Warwick - visited Legoland with friends a couple of weeks back, one lactose intolerant, queued for Pizza Pasta only to be told at the front of the queue “sorry, we’re not catering for allergens at the moment”.


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Rob F said:
Surely it can be described as a form of discrimination to purposely remove all dietary options and be as blunt as we dont cater for allergens ?
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I don’t believe there is any legal reason for them to have to cater for dietary requirements, they simply have to ensure any allergens are labelled correctly.

It doesn’t excuse that it’s ridiculous from a customer service perspective though.
 
Rob F said:
Surely it can be described as a form of discrimination to purposely remove all dietary options and be as blunt as we dont cater for allergens ?
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Unless it’s a temporary stop whilst they investigate the issue and put mitigations in place? But that wasn’t really how it was described by the waitress, and the manager didn’t add much more to it except “they’re working on it”. Still ought to be advertised really - it’s really not ok to not cater for people.

I think also although they would be on a sticky wicket for halal (if that is included in the ban) as that is a protected characteristic under equal opportunity/discrimination laws (religion), Veganism and other dietary requirements is a bit of a grey area. I am as far as I can be an ethical vegan which means my entire lifestyle is governed by vegan principles, (to remove, where practicable, any use of animals, animal products or by products - so I don’t eat them, wear them or use them for entertainment) however I do make exceptions for parks with animals. Does make me a slight hypocrite but with all the other vegan points I earn it’s a trade off I can live with.

Warwick has animals therefore is not a vegan site so kicking up too much stink wouldn’t be sensible in my opinion.
 
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For me Alton essentially answered the question "does this food contain x allergen". That's a legal requirement, if you can't answer that you can't open. That does not cover cross contamination that might have been the gluten issue?

Any food allergy is likely to be classed as a disability so a protected characteristic. That requires "reasonable accomodation". Normally you'd expect them to find away to provide some food (although not necessarily at all outlets). If there was an incident where someone was hurt because of that accomodation you'd think that it's reasonable to temporarily remove the current policy. That could only fly if you were actively working out what went wrong and how to restore service as soon as possible.
 
That Guy said:
For me Alton essentially answered the question "does this food contain x allergen". That's a legal requirement, if you can't answer that you can't open. That does not cover cross contamination that might have been the gluten issue?

Any food allergy is likely to be classed as a disability so a protected characteristic. That requires "reasonable accomodation". Normally you'd expect them to find away to provide some food (although not necessarily at all outlets). If there was an incident where someone was hurt because of that accomodation you'd think that it's reasonable to temporarily remove the current policy. That could only fly if you were actively working out what went wrong and how to restore service as soon as possible.
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But that's like closing all the accessible toilets because someone fell in one. It neither addresses the issue that caused the incident not continues to provide accessible services to those that require them.

Whether or not a food allergy constitutes a disability or protected characteristic is a bit of a grey area, but I'd argue that failing to provide for those that have specific requirements due to a medical issue is discrimination according to the Equality Act. It's a bit different if you go to a local deli in a city centre and they don't provide for (say) coeliacs than if you are stuck for an entire day or longer in a closed site that refuses to provide for your basic needs. How do the parks expect to cater for those staying on resort that are there for 2-3 days and have no options to make their own lunches?

I'm confused about this alleged incident as well as Towers have never said that any food is certified gluten-free. You can order "non-gluten containing" meals and take the chance, but there are (disappointingly) clauses in place that protect them from lawsuits should you get ill.

I hope this is a temporary policy while they reassess and put better measures in place. Otherwise I guess I'll be making a lot of sandwiches next season!
 
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