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Does your restaurant server know the most important details about food allergies?

A report by PLOS ONE found that only 30% of restaurant staff surveyed could correctly name three food allergies and only 42% correctly answered a list of true/false statements about food allergies.

“We looked at knowledge and attitudes, and the key finding would be that the knowledge levels are not as good as we would expect in restaurant staff, because these are people that are handling food in a daily basis,” said Adrian Loerbroks, a senior researcher at the University of Düsseldorf (h/t CNN).

The scariest part of the survey was that 89% of respondents said they felt confident they could correctly provide information regarding what allergies might be affected by a given meal.

While this likely isn’t cause for alarm, it is important to push a server and kitchen team to be very specific about potential allergens in their food. There is nothing wrong with playing it safe, especially if it’s your own health at stake.