Consequences

Emily Vonder Meulen

In my last post, I mentioned that cross-contamination from a Subway sandwich was already responsible for the death of a young girl, Emily Vonder Meulen. Emily suffered from a severe peanut allergy. In 2006, her mother took her shopping and bought her a Subway lunch at the mall's food court. Emily's sandwich, which her mother says she'd eaten "a hundred times before," had somehow gotten a few crumbs of a peanut butter cookie in it; the thirteen-year-old was dead less than 20 minutes later.

Her parents made an appearance on the Today Show to tell their story:

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This instance is completely unacceptable; it should never have happened. If the Subway employee had taken a few simple precautionary measures, like changing his or her gloves or preparing the sandwich farther away from the cookies, this girl would still be alive.

Children's Hospital Allergy Director Dr. Assa'ad told Cincinnati's WCPO (channel 9) just that."We feel the food handling practices are such that cross contamination is not considered," he said.

Subway managers, it's time for you to start considering them. Don't wait until this happens at your store to start making changes. Talk to your employees. Make them wash their knives and change their gloves. Better still-- print this allergy chart out and display it prominently in your store:

http://www.subway.com/subwayroot/MenuNutrition/Nutrition/pdf/AllergenChart.pdf

Keep potential allergens away from other food, watch for ingredients dropping into other food bins, and just be careful.


In other words: step it up, Subway!