A teenager who died after eating a birthday meal at British burger chain Byron had told staff about his allergy to dairy. A coroner has found he was misled into thinking his order was safe to eat.
Owen Carey was celebrating his 18th birthday at a London branch of the restaurant in 2017. He told the wait staff about his dairy allergy before ordering a skinny grilled chicken burger with no sauce. According to the UK’s Press Association (PA), he was reassured by the menu and was told by the staff the burger contained no dairy and was safe for him to eat.
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Unfortunately, Owen Carey, who typically carried an epi-pen but did not have it that day, suffered anaphylactic shock after eating the chicken because it was marinaded in buttermilk. He died within an hour.
A coroner ruled on Friday that the restaurant’s menu misled Carey into thinking the burger was safe for him to eat by failing to list that the dish contained buttermilk.
In a statement read at the Southwark Coroner’s Court during an inquest on Friday, coroner Briony Ballard concluded:
The deceased made serving staff aware of his allergies. The menu was reassuring in that it made no reference to any marinade or potential allergenic ingredient in the food selected.
The deceased was not informed that there were allergens in the order. The food served to and consumed by the deceased contained dairy which caused the deceased to suffer a severe anaphylactic reaction from which he died.1
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Outside the court, Carey’s family pleaded for a shift in the law to prevent similar incidents in the future. His family said in a statement reported by the PA:
Owen was the shining light in our family. We are calling on the Government to change the law on allergen labeling in restaurants. We want restaurants to have to display clear allergen information on each individual dish on their menus. The food industry should put the safety of their customers first.
It is simply not good enough to have a policy which relies on verbal communication between the customer and their server, which often takes places in a busy, noisy restaurant where the turnover of staff is high and many of their customers are very young.1
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Also attending the verdict were the parents of Natasha Ednan-Loperouse, who was fifteen when she died in 2016 after eating a sesame seed Pret a Manger baguette that was not labeled.
Nadim and Tanya Ednan-Laperouse called Friday’s verdict a “landmark judgement,” adding:
We have heard remarkable parallels between Owen and Natasha’s death. Owen’s death yet again highlights the inadequacy of food information in this country.1
Byron is known as one of Britain’s most popular burger chains. There are 35 restaurants in London and many others throughout the country.
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Simon Wilkinson, CEO of Byron, extended his “deepest condolences” to Carey’s family, saying in a statement:
It is a matter of great regret and sadness that our high standards of communicating with our customers were not met during Owen’s visit. We believe that Byron always did its best to meet our responsibilities, but we know that this will be of no comfort to Owen’s family.1
