The UK government petition calling for mandatory coeliac disease awareness training across the catering industry has crossed 8,000 signatures and continues to grow. Vanda's Kitchen supports it because we already operate to the standard the petition is asking for — and because a consistent industry baseline would protect coeliac diners across the country.
What the petition is asking for
The petition, hosted on the official UK government petitions site at petition.parliament.uk, calls for the government to require all staff working in catering services to receive basic coeliac disease awareness training. The aim is straightforward: a consistent, minimum standard of understanding around meal preparation, serving, and the realities of cross-contamination for people with coeliac disease.
This is not asking for chefs to become medical experts. It is asking for the same basic competence that already exists for fire safety, food hygiene, and lifting and handling — applied to the specific risks faced by coeliac diners. At 10,000 signatures, the government must respond. At 100,000, it is considered for Parliamentary debate.
For an industry that handles food for tens of millions of people every day, the absence of any minimum coeliac competence requirement is genuinely surprising. Food hygiene certificates are mandatory. Allergen labelling under Natasha's Law is mandatory. But a kitchen porter or front-of-house staff member can serve a coeliac guest a "gluten-free" meal having received no specific training on what coeliac disease actually is, what cross-contamination looks like in practice, or how a single contaminated chip can put someone in pain for days.
Why this is more than paperwork
Coeliac disease is an autoimmune condition affecting around 1 in 100 people in the UK — roughly 670,000 people, with around half of those still undiagnosed. For coeliacs, eating gluten triggers an immune response that damages the small intestine. The damage is cumulative. The symptoms can include severe abdominal pain, vomiting, fatigue, joint pain, anaemia, and in long-term untreated cases, increased risk of certain cancers.
Coeliac disease is not an allergy. It is not an intolerance. It is not a fashionable dietary choice. It is a chronic medical condition managed through complete and lifelong avoidance of gluten — including gluten in trace amounts.
The challenge for the catering industry is that cross-contamination is invisible. A gluten-free sandwich made on the same chopping board that just sliced a regular loaf is no longer gluten-free. Chips cooked in oil shared with battered fish are no longer safe. A salad tossed with tongs that just handled croutons can make a coeliac seriously ill. None of this looks unsafe to someone who hasn't been trained to recognise it.
Most catering staff want to do the right thing. They are not the problem. The problem is that without training, the systemic risks of cross-contamination simply aren't visible to most people working in food preparation. Gluten-free is treated as a menu category rather than a kitchen process, and that's where the harm happens.
What good coeliac practice actually looks like
A kitchen handling coeliac diners safely operates differently from one that doesn't. The differences are practical and learnable, which is exactly why a basic training requirement would work:
Dedicated equipment for gluten-free preparation. Separate chopping boards, separate knives, separate toasters, separate fryers where possible. Where dedicated equipment isn't possible, thorough cleaning between uses, with the order of preparation managed so gluten-free items are made first, before contaminating tools are used.
Clear physical separation on buffets and serving lines. Gluten-free items placed in their own labelled section with their own serving utensils. Where space is tight, gluten-free items raised or covered to prevent gluten-containing crumbs from falling in.
Staff who can answer the question. When a coeliac guest asks "is this gluten-free, or is this prepared in a gluten-free way?" — those are different questions. A trained staff member can answer the second. An untrained one often answers the first and assumes that's enough.
Allergen management as kitchen process, not menu labelling. Natasha's Law requires labelling of pre-packed food. It does not require the kitchen process behind the food to be allergen-aware. The petition closes that gap.
How Vanda's Kitchen already operates to this standard
At Vanda's Kitchen, coeliac and gluten-free awareness is built into how we run the kitchen — not because of a regulatory requirement, but because it's the right way to run a catering business in 2026.
Over 60% of our menu is gluten-free as standard. Designed that way, not adapted on request. When more than half of what we make is gluten-free by default, the structural awareness of how to handle it spreads through every kitchen process rather than being a special exception for occasional orders.
Every item carries full Natasha's Law allergen labelling. Gluten included, alongside the other thirteen regulated allergens. Every order leaves our kitchen with this labelling intact, whether it's a single sandwich or a wake catering platter for sixty.
Our kitchen is 100% nut-free at the structural level. No nuts are present anywhere in the kitchen, eliminating cross-contamination risk for nut allergies entirely. The same kitchen process discipline that achieves this for nuts is applied to gluten management.
Our halal certification is independently verified by the Halal Friendly List and applied across the whole kitchen rather than to selected items. Halal certification at the whole-kitchen level requires the same kind of structural process awareness that coeliac safety requires.
Our team is trained on allergen management as part of standard kitchen operations, not as a special workflow for special orders. The training is internal, ongoing, and covers the practical realities of cross-contamination — exactly what the petition is asking the government to require across the industry.
What to look for if you're catering for a coeliac guest
If you're planning a wake, christening, office event, film shoot or any gathering where one or more guests have coeliac disease or serious gluten sensitivity, the practical questions to ask a caterer are:
Is gluten-free built into the menu design, or added as an option? Built-in is safer. A kitchen where gluten-free is a structural feature handles it differently from a kitchen where it's a special order.
What proportion of items are gluten-free as standard? If the answer is "we have some options" rather than a specific proportion, that's a signal.
How is cross-contamination managed in the kitchen? Look for specific answers about equipment, surfaces, and order of preparation — not generic reassurance.
Will the food be set out so coeliac items are clearly identifiable on the buffet? Because the buffet is where most cross-contamination happens, regardless of how careful the kitchen has been.
Is allergen labelling done to Natasha's Law standards on every item? If yes, ask to see the labelling system. A serious caterer will have a clear answer.
If the answers feel vague, that's a flag. If the caterer has to think hard about the question, that's a flag. Coeliac safety should be answered confidently and immediately by anyone running a serious catering operation.
How to sign the petition
The petition is hosted on the official UK government petitions site at petition.parliament.uk and is open to UK residents and citizens. Visit the site and search "coeliac disease awareness training" to find and sign it. The signature threshold for a government response is 10,000. The threshold for Parliamentary debate consideration is 100,000.
If you work in or alongside the catering industry — running a venue, planning events, managing a hospitality team — the petition is also worth sharing within your network. The strongest case for change comes from inside the industry, not just from coeliac diners advocating for their own safety.
Frequently asked questions
Is gluten-free the same as coeliac-safe?
Not necessarily. A gluten-free item prepared in a kitchen that handles gluten can carry trace contamination that makes it unsafe for a coeliac, even if it contains no gluten ingredients. Coeliac-safe means the kitchen process, not just the recipe, has been managed to prevent contamination.
What proportion of the Vanda's Kitchen menu is gluten-free?
Over 60% of our menu is gluten-free as standard — designed that way rather than adapted on request. The proportion stays consistent as we add new products because gluten-free is built into the kitchen process rather than treated as a special order category.
Can you cater for a coeliac guest at a buffet event?
Yes. Items are clearly labelled to Natasha's Law standards, separated where needed, and identifiable at a glance — so the coeliac guest can eat without checking each item or asking the host.
Where can I read more about how Vanda's Kitchen handles coeliac and gluten safety?
The wake catering, christening catering and film shoot catering hub pages all draw from the same gluten-managed kitchen and explain the practical implications for each catering type.
If you're catering for a coeliac guest
For wake, christening, office or production catering with coeliac requirements, our kitchen handles this by default rather than as a special order. Wake catering, christening catering, and film shoot catering all draw from the same gluten-managed kitchen.
Order sandwich and bagel platters directly from our shop, or WhatsApp the kitchen to discuss anything bespoke.