Costa Coffee has apologised after giving prospects ‘harmful’ recommendation on social media.
The recommendation was shared on Twitter, after a father or mother tweeted the chain asking about gluten-free choices for his coeliac daughter.
He defined how his teenager needed to have the ability to take pleasure in a scorching drink together with her mates and never really feel just like the ‘odd one out’.
However prospects had been shocked when the chain made an incorrect assertion about allergens.
Costa’s Twitter account responded to the person’s tweet, claiming the steam arm on their espresso machines is “excessive [hot] sufficient to [sterilise] any allergen remaining and get rid of the prospect of cross-contamination danger”.
Alarmed by the remark, gluten-free recipe e book writer Becky Excell, from Essex, tweeted on the thread, warning coeliacs to not hearken to the ‘misinformation’ and emphasising that ‘warmth doesn’t kill gluten’.
Costa deleted the tweets, however 31-year-old Becky, writer of Make Something Gluten Free and Bake Something Gluten Free, says she’s involved over practices to keep away from cross-contamination within the chain’s shops.
The favored espresso chain have since apologised and stated that the tweet doesn’t mirror practices in retailer. In addition they emphasised that employees comply with ‘strict processes’ to keep away from cross-contamination.
“I comply with Costa on Twitter and so they’d introduced that day that they had been bringing out some gluten free merchandise so I used to be wanting on their web page,” stated Becky.
“I noticed a father had tweeted them asking for recommendation about issues being gluten free at Costa as a result of his daughter is coeliac.
“That is a scenario the place you need to get it proper as a result of it is a father or mother making an attempt to know if Costa is suitable for eating at for his younger little one.
“Then I observed their actually terrible response – they stated ‘warmth kills gluten’. Warmth doesn’t kill gluten. You simply suppose oh my god how can somebody say that as a result of it is 100% flawed.
“For all of the those that have nut and different life-threatening allergy symptoms, I might be actually anxious now by what they’re doing.
After the tweet was printed, different prospects additionally took to social media to tweet Costa.
One stated: “What hope do we’ve when Costa Espresso are spouting this nonsense! If warmth killed gluten, then all cooked meals can be gluten free.
“Simply another reason why I will not set foot inside Costa anymore!”
One other added: “I do hope they do a publish apologising for posting such harmful and deceptive info!”
Inside hours, Costa started replying to particular person tweets.
One response stated: “We’re taking this very matter very critically and reiterating to our customer support colleagues the danger that’s current in retailer and what our strategy is in retailer relating to cross-contamination.”
Becky has emailed the chain with a proper criticism, of which she acquired an extended response, once more apologising for the misinformation and explaining that they deleted the tweet ‘in an effort to attempt to stop additional confusion’.
The e-mail stated: “I need to reassure you that the posts don’t mirror the strategy taken in our shops to minimise the dangers of cross-contamination.
“We all know that there’s all the time a danger of cross-contamination when making ready drinks in retailer, and our groups comply with strict processes in an effort to minimise this danger.
“This consists of the usage of separate jugs and cloths when making ready any drink with a plant-based various.”
Becky continued: “It angered lots of people who’ve been coeliac for a very long time however what actually worries me is that there is likely to be newly-diagnosed folks studying that who’re confused about it now.
“You’ll count on {that a} huge model like Costa can be giving out the right info. The truth that they did not correctly tackle it and simply deleted it’s fairly worrying as a result of there are most likely lots of people who noticed it that are not certain now.
“Locations like that appear to do this on a regular basis, attempt to sweep it below the rug and suppose it can simply go away however when it is to do with somebody’s well being it should not simply go away.
“It might’ve been very nice if they only apologised overtly to everybody and perhaps referred folks to Coeliac UK to get some info on it, however they selected to only cover.”
A spokesperson for Costa Espresso stated: “We take the security and wellbeing of our prospects extraordinarily critically and apologise for the wrong info that was shared from our Twitter account.
“As quickly as we had been made conscious of the error we apologised and shared an accurate model of our in-store course of to those that contacted us.
“We additionally eliminated the unique tweet to keep away from additional confusion, following suggestions from prospects on-line.
“In our shops, to assist scale back the danger to prospects from cross-contamination, we’ve strict coaching and procedures in place.
“When a buyer informs us about an allergy or dietary requirement our crew members are pleased to clarify the measures we are able to take to scale back the danger of cross-contamination, to allow them to make an knowledgeable selection.
“This may embrace the usage of extra tools, corresponding to separate jugs and cleansing cloths. Steam wands are additionally cleaned with the related cloths and purged after each drink preparation to scale back the danger of cross-contamination.”
