Pret A Manger has updated the allergy information for sandwiches like the one that killed a 15-year-old schoolgirl – but still hasn’t put it on the packaging itself.
Natasha Ednan-Laperouse, 15, was on a dream trip to Nice with her best friend and her father when she ate the sandwich laced with sesame seeds not listed on the label.
After eating the artichoke, olive and tapenade baguette she went into anaphyactic shock and broke out in red hives. She later died in hospital 800 miles away from home on the Cote d’Azur.
The fast food chain did not break the law by not having allergy information on the product itself, as a legal loophole does not require restaurants to do so if their products are made fresh in store – like Pret.
But at an inquest into her death on Friday the coroner still slammed the chain’s ‘inadequate’ packaging.
Following Natasha’s death and prior to her inquest, Pret updated the allergy information on its shelves – but their labels still have no ingredients list.
Natasha Ednan-Laperouse, 15 (pictured) was on a dream trip to Nice with her best friend and her father when she ate the sandwich laced with sesame seeds not listed on the label
This weekend Pret has updated the allergy information on its shelves, but there are still no ingredients lists on its products. The baguette picture is a similar sesame product, but not the same as the one Natasha ate
Pret told MailOnline in a statement: ‘Since almost all Pret products are made fresh each day, our nutritional values and weight per pack are only averages.
‘We always indicate when a product does contain an allergen as an ingredient, but please be aware we use multiple ingredients in our kitchens and therefore cannot guarantee that our food is completely free of any allergen.’
On Friday Pret was shamed by coroner Dr Sean Cummings who blasted its ‘inadequate’ packaging and said Natasha was falsely ‘reassured’ by wrappers and store signs at Heathrow Terminal 5.
‘We have heard everything the Coroner and Natasha’s family have said this week. And we will learn from this. All of us at Pret want to see meaningful change come from this tragedy. We will make sure that it does’.
Describing the labels on packages and stickers in store he said: ‘I am of the view that they were inadequate in terms of visibility’.
And blasting their culture he said: ‘Overall I am left with the impression that Pret had not addressed the fact that monitoring food allergy in a business selling more than 200million items a year was something to be taken very seriously indeed.’
He then addressed her overwhelmed father, mother and brother he said: ‘I can’t imagine how this was for you on that day’.
Dr Cummings also slammed her ‘terrible’ ordeal on the BA flight where heart stopped but cabin crew said it was too dangerous to get a defibrillator because they were descending to land and needed to stand by the doors.
Outside West London Coroner’s Court, with her brother Alex clutching a picture of his sister, Mr Ednan-Laperouse said: ‘If Pret was following the law – then the law was playing Russian Roulette with my daughter’s life’.
He added that the tragedy of Natasha’s death ‘should serve as a watershed moment to make meaningful change to save lives’.
Tanya and Nadim Ednan-Laperouse who have opened up about the devastating day they lost their daughter
The brother, mother and father of Natasha Ednan-Laperouse today urged a law change after her tragic death
Yesterday her mother and father told The Mail on Sunday of their last words to their daughter.
Her father was at her bedside in France, while her mother was still at the departures lounge at Stansted waiting to fly out – but it would soon be too late.
Sobbing her mother Tanya spoke as her Nadim husband laid his mobile phone on the pillow by Natasha’s ear.
‘You’ve got to say goodbye to her now,’ her husband Nadim urged, his voice choked.
‘Don’t lose time. She’s going to die any minute. Say something. She might hear it.’
It took all the strength Tanya had not to crumble to the ground.
She said: ‘I said, ‘Tashi, I love you so much, darling. I’ll be with you soon. I’ll be with you.’
‘Because, when you’ve got children, you don’t want them to be without you, do you?
‘They still need you. I fell to the ground. I couldn’t talk, I was engulfed with grief. I knew then she was gone – she was dead.’
Natasha’s holiday to Nice, France, where the family owned an apartment, was the first time she had gone away without her mother.
She died after eating the Pret baguette laced with sesame seeds, which she had been severely allergic to since the age of two.