Restaurant Owner Sentenced In A Nut Allergy-Related Death
Anyone with food allergies knows how stressful it can be to find restaurants with dishes that are safe to eat. Diners with allergies meticulously read menus and ask servers tons of questions to avoid certain ingredients-but what happens when the restaurant makes a fatal mistake?
The owner of an Indian restaurant in Britain was recently convicted of manslaughter after serving a customer a dish that killed him, The New York Times reports. Mohammad Zaman, the 52-year-old restaurateur, was sentenced to six years in prison on Monday, following a deathly food allergy incident. A customer placed a to-go order for chicken tikka masala in January of 2014, specifying "no nuts" since he'd experienced severe allergic reactions in the past. After eating the curry dish, he was found dead in his home, due to anaphylactic shock.
Zaman was found guilty of manslaughter by gross negligence-the first time that anyone has been convicted of that offense over sale of food in the U.K. The court noted his "cavalier attitude to food safety," and claimed that the death could have easily been avoided. In order to save money, Zaman had reportedly been cutting corners at the restaurant, hiring untrained, undocumented workers and replacing ingredients in his recipes with cheaper alternatives.
The almond powder used in several recipes was swapped out for a less expensive mix of groundnuts, which could very well be the culprit. In fact, another customer had to be treated for a nut allergy reaction after eating in the same restaurant just three weeks before the fatal incident. We can only hope that the sad outcome and severe punishment in this case will serve as a warning to all restaurateurs to take food safety very seriously.
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