The challenge:
To make food service businesses aware of their legal obligation to have written food allergen information visible, easily located and accessible to the consumer.
Food Safety Authority of Ireland
Allergens Campaign
We needed to:
- Make sellers of unpackaged foods aware of the risk of allergens to vulnerable customers
- Make sellers aware of the risk to their business should an incident take place
- Increase compliance with the legislation
- Position the FSAI as the watchdog for food safety in Ireland
What we did
Our audience was broad, it included restaurants, pubs, takeaways, caterers, food stalls, shops with deli counters, convenience stores and other food delivery services. We conducted a number of face to face interviews with food business owners to uncover their awareness and attitudes to displaying allergen information. From these interviews we used the following insights to inform the campaign creative:
- There was a lack of awareness of a business’s obligation to display allergen information to their customers but also in some cases there was a lack of motivation to do so
- The legal consequences / penalties of not doing so were not motivating for all businesses
- Businesses are aware that allergens can have an impact on their customers health but believe it won’t happen on their premises, this complacency is a risk to their customers and their business
- Without experiencing an allergic incident directly, food service providers can be unaware of the seriousness of the symptoms that customers can suffer from
Campaign Creative
We identified that food providers were not taking the display of allergen information seriously enough. We needed to be serious. We needed to cut through the perfect food imagery that is common in trade media and shock people into action. We had to show them that this is a real responsibility with real consequences, not only in law, but also that there are potential real life and death consequences.
Radio
