A Peanut Allergy at a 150-Cover Wedding
At a 150-cover wedding reception at a hotel in Nashik, the banquet team has 12 waiters, 2 trainees and one banquet supervisor. The menu is a four-course plated vegetarian dinner with a live chaat counter. The banquet event order mentions 'one Jain meal' but no allergy. At 19:40, the bride's cousin tells a waiter that her 7-year-old son has a severe peanut allergy and that the kitchen uses peanut oil for the Chinese bhel at the chaat counter. Guests are already seated and the first course is being served. The kitchen has one separate induction plate and a small prep area. The banquet supervisor is also managing a delayed arrival of 30 guests and a shortage of soup bowls.
1. What should the banquet supervisor do in the first five minutes, and what must not be said to the family?
Read the worked answer
In the first five minutes the supervisor should go personally to the table, confirm the allergy with the parent, and ask what the child has already eaten or touched. The supervisor should not send a trainee with a vague message. The chef must be called out of the kitchen or spoken to directly, and the chaat counter must be treated as a risk area for this child. The child should be moved away from the chaat counter if possible, and no new food should be served to the child until the chef confirms a safe plate.
The supervisor must not say 'it is only a little', 'peanut oil is refined so it is safe', or 'we will remove the peanuts' unless the chef has verified labels and preparation. Those statements can create false reassurance and delay proper action. The supervisor should also not ignore the issue because 30 guests have arrived late or soup bowls are short; an allergy is a safety incident, while the other two are service problems. The message to the parent should be honest: 'We are checking every ingredient and will prepare his meal separately. Please do not let him eat from the buffet or chaat counter until we confirm.'
2. Design the child's meal service and explain how kitchen and service staff should coordinate.
Read the worked answer
The chef should prepare a simple meal on the separate induction plate using clean utensils, a clean board and ingredients whose labels have been checked. The meal should avoid the chaat counter entirely, including the Chinese bhel, sauces, chutneys and any shared fryer oil. If the kitchen cannot verify an ingredient, it should not use it. The meal should be plated separately, covered, and labelled with the child's name and table number. One named waiter should carry it and serve it first, before other plates at the table, so there is no cross-contact from serving spoons or hands.
The coordination should follow a short chain: the supervisor confirms the order with the parent, the chef prepares and personally checks the plate, the named waiter collects it and confirms the label, and the supervisor observes the delivery. The child's table should be given separate serving spoons and no shared chaat platters. Dessert must also be checked, because nuts may be used in garnishes or sauces. The supervisor should record what was served, who prepared it and at what time. This is not about being dramatic; it is about controlling the points where peanut protein can reach the child.
3. How should the supervisor handle the delayed 30 guests and the soup-bowl shortage without compromising the allergy response?
Read the worked answer
The supervisor should delegate the soup-bowl problem to a senior waiter or the catering manager, not to the named allergy waiter. The kitchen can use available bowls first, then borrow from the restaurant or use clean cups as a temporary measure, but the substitute must be explained to the guests. The delayed 30 guests should be greeted with a clear time for service and offered water or a starter that does not require the missing bowls. The supervisor should not leave the allergy table to solve these problems personally until the child's meal is served and the parent has confirmed it is acceptable.
The reasoning is triage: allergy safety is irreversible if something goes wrong, while a delayed soup and a bowl shortage are recoverable service issues. The supervisor should assign one person to each problem, keep the kitchen informed, and return to the allergy table to check that the child has eaten safely. After service, the supervisor should update the banquet event order with the allergy, brief the team, and review why the allergy was not captured at booking. The short-term fix is delegation; the long-term fix is a written allergy field on every event order.