We believe that taken together, these two actions could help save lives and build greater trust in the UK food industry for people with food allergies.

The letter argues that the Food Standards Agency (FSA) needs to make a clear decision on allergen thresholds and a strong recommendation to ministers. This would provide sellers of food with an absolute definition of how much of a specific allergen pre-packed food could safely contain before being labelled as free of that allergen.

Celia Marsh’s death, like many other serious anaphylaxis attacks, was not immediately reported to the relevant authorities or even to the business that had sold the product. This not only posed a risk to customers, but also impacted the investigation and learnings from Celia’s death. Government and public health bodies must, as the coroner recommends, devise a ‘robust system’ for the rapid reporting of fatal and near-fatal severe allergic reactions.