The parents of a 23-year-old man who died after eating a takeaway chicken tikka masala pizza have called for a meeting with the bosses of the UK’s big three delivery apps to discuss how things can be improved for food allergy sufferers.
James Atkinson, who had a known peanut allergy, died in July 2020 after eating less than a slice of the pizza ordered from a restaurant in Newcastle via the Deliveroo app. Unknown to him, the ingredients included a powder that was 99% peanuts.
A coroner on Monday ruled that Atkinson had died from a severe allergic reaction to the peanuts and had been unaware that the food contained them.
Karen Dilks returned a narrative conclusion outlining how Atkinson ordered the food on the app, that he did not contact the restaurant directly to inform them of his allergies and that he did not have an EpiPen available once he started to feel unwell.
To prevent future deaths, she said she would write to the Department of Health to urge GPs to regularly review patients who have allergies and educate them about the importance of carrying EpiPens. She will also write to authorities in support of Owen’s law, which is calling for restaurants to state in writing the allergens their dishes include.
But Dilks said she would not be making any direct recommendations to the three major food ordering apps, which had no legal requirement to provide allergen information.
Speaking afterwards, James’s parents, Stuart and Jill, said they believed the inquest had “shone a light on much bigger issues that need urgent attention”. They said the UK had one of the biggest online food delivery markets in the world and one in four people lived with allergies. “Online food platforms have a major role in choosing who they partner with and how food is safely provided to customers by their partner providers.
“We now take this opportunity to publicly call on the bosses of the big 3 apps, Will Shu of Deliveroo, Matthew Price of UberEats and Claire Pointon of Just Eat, to meet with us to carry out a collaborative review of what further steps can be taken to better protect consumers. This is not about competition or sales. This is about people’s lives.”
The six-day inquest at Newcastle civic centre heard that Atkinson, originally from Leeds, had studied computer science at Newcastle University and stayed in the city after getting his “dream job” as a programmer.
Atkinson realised something was wrong within seconds of eating the first slice of pizza and asked his friends to search for his EpiPen, while he called an ambulance. No EpiPen was found by his panicked friends, the inquest heard.
A pathologist said that while it may not have made a difference, an EpiPen did increase the chances of survival.
Gulfam Ulhaq, 58, who ran the now-closed Dadyal restaurant in Howard Street, Newcastle, said it was up to customers to inform staff if they had an allergy.
