Hi Timothy W,
Thank you for leaving us some feedback.
I’m sorry to hear you were not happy with your recent visit due to our being unable to guarantee that there would be no cross contamination of peanuts.
To give more detail about our policy regarding this specific allergy, although we would absolutely do as you have suggested and use different utensils and wash our hands – as we do when handling food with other allergy markers – this would still not sufficiently ensure that someone with a peanut allergy would not have a reaction. For food to be labelled as free from nuts in a factory setting for example, nuts must not be present on the premises let alone being cooked elsewhere in the same kitchen.
I appreciate that our reasoning was likely not explained to you in this detail by our wait staff and probably did seem a little odd at the time, however I assure you that our position on this particular precaution is one we have reached only after due consideration and having heeded external advice.
Again I am sorry that we were unable to serve you on this occasion.
The Annie's Team