A coroner’s court in the UK has found that 18-year-old Owen Carey died of a “severe allergic reaction” after he was “misled” about the ingredients of a grilled chicken burger.
Carey was celebrating his 18th birthday at a London branch of the Byron burger restaurant in 2017, where he ordered a skinny grilled chicken burger, having informed staff of his dairy allergy.
The restaurant’s menu made no mention of the marinade for the dish containing buttermilk, and coroner Briony Ballard said that the teen was “misled” into thinking it was safe to eat.
Owen Carey had visited a Star Wars exhibit with his girlfriend earlier in the day, and ate half of his burger at lunch before complaining of allergic symptoms.
The couple had planned to visit the London Aquariam in the afternoon, but he collapsed in her arms on the way, and was rushed to hospital but could not be revived.
Delivering her finding at Southwark coroners court, Ballard said:
“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.”
The family of the teen have called for legislation referred to as ‘Owen’s law’, requiring food allergens to be clearly labelled on menus, saying:
“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. This leaves far too much room for error on an issue we know all too well costs lives.”
