A nut-free wedding tier in a nut-handling bakery

The plan addresses one variable - sequencing - and ignores the rest of the route.

Where it fails:

• The mixer. A planetary mixer has a bowl base, a beater shaft and a hub that trap material; a 'good wash' by hand at the sink is not a validated clean and cannot be verified.
• The bench and the air. Nut flour dust settles everywhere and is easily re-aerated. Monday morning is not a clean room.
• Shared utensils and porous items. Plastic bowls, spatulas with worn edges, piping bags, cloths and brushes hold residues that washing does not remove.
• The fridge and the van. An open or loosely wrapped tier next to éclair trays is cross-contact by another route entirely.
• Ingredients. Praline paste, nut extracts, marzipan decorations, even a shared jar of jam, are vectors.
• People. The same hands and aprons that handled praline at 06:00 on Saturday are the ones making the tier.

What a free-from claim requires: the absence of the allergen in the finished product, demonstrated by controls you can show - segregated equipment, validated cleaning with verification (allergen swab or specific ELISA test on the cleaned surfaces), sealed storage, documented batch records and staff training. If you cannot show it, you cannot print it, and you should not imply it verbally either.

Option A - build a genuine segregated batch (only if the numbers and space permit):

1. Buy a dedicated 5-litre mixer and a set of colour-coded, labelled utensils, bowls, spatulas and a piping bag that never enter the main bakery. Store them sealed in a labelled crate.
2. Make the tier in a separate room, or in the shop before service with a full cleaned-down bench, no nuts in the building that morning, staff in clean aprons who have not handled nuts.
3. Use only ingredients with written allergen statements, opened fresh, and never a shared jar.
4. Wrap and box the tier sealed, label it with the allergen statement, and transport it in a separate sealed box, not on the éclair tray stack.
5. Verify: swab the bench, the mixer bowl and the utensils and send for nut-specific testing before you rely on the process. Document the result.

Option B - decline the free-from claim, and offer a tier that carries an honest 'made in a bakery that handles nuts' statement, while pointing the couple to a nut-free specialist for that one tier.

My choice in a shop that roasts and grinds nuts daily in the main room is B, with A offered only if the couple will accept the segregation and the swab test result. The downside of A done properly is cost and a small separate batch; the downside of doing it sloppily is anaphylaxis. That asymmetry decides it.

Say, in writing and early: that the bakery uses nuts daily in the same production area, so you cannot claim the tier is nut-free unless you run a fully segregated batch; set out the two options with the cost difference and let them choose. Recommend that the guest's family and clinician make the final call on any bakery product - that is not passing the problem back, it is giving them the information they need to make a medical decision about a family member.

Under no circumstances say 'it'll be fine', and do not let a verbal reassurance override a written allergen statement.

Record:

• The allergen risk assessment for this product, signed and dated.
• The customer's written request and your written response - the exact wording of what was promised.
• The batch record: who made it, when, which equipment, which ingredients and their batch codes and allergen statements.
• Cleaning records, plus the swab/ELISA result if segregation was used, filed with the batch.
• Delivery and storage conditions, and who signed it out.

This is not bureaucracy. If a reaction happens, the first question asked of you will be 'what did you tell them, and what did you do to make it true' - and the answer has to be on paper.