Ask the customer who cannot eat what

Every booking eventually produces the same message: "oh, and one of them is coeliac". Usually it arrives three days before the event, sometimes on the morning of it. This setting moves that conversation to the moment the customer is already filling in a form.

Two different questions

It helps to separate two things that sound similar:

• What is in your food is something you declare, on each product, under Allergens. See Tag allergens.
• What a guest cannot eat is something the customer declares. That is this setting.

They meet on the finished order, where you can see the guests' needs next to the dishes that were ordered.

How to turn it on

• Log in to CaterWay.
• Open Calculators from the menu on the left and open the calculator you want.
• Stay on the Basic tab.
• Switch on Ask about special diets.
• Save.

That is the whole setup. The customer now gets an extra step just before the summary.

What the customer sees

A step titled Special diets, explaining that the kitchen wants to plan for allergies and diets, and that the step can be skipped. For each guest they can:

• pick from Allergies, the 14 allergens named in EU food law
• pick from Diets, the ways of eating that are not allergies, such as vegan or lactose-free
• add a first name, but only if you have switched on Ask for guests' names with special diets (see below)
• write anything the options do not cover under Something else?
• use Add another person for the next one

There is also No special diets, so a customer with nothing to declare says so on the record rather than leaving you guessing whether they read the question.

Numbers or names

By default the step asks for numbers, not names: "2 x gluten-free, 1 x halal". The customer picks the diet, sets how many people it covers, and is asked not to write names. That is all most kitchens need, and it keeps you out of health data altogether.

Asking for guests' names

Some events need names, for example a seated dinner where the waiter has to know which plate goes to whom. Switch on Ask for guests' names with special diets under Ask about special diets.

A name next to an allergy is health data, and a name next to halal or kosher can reveal religion. The GDPR calls these special categories of personal data, and they need the guest's explicit consent. So before the switch turns on, you read a short explanation and press I understand, switch on. We store who confirmed it and when.

When names are on, the customer sees a separate consent box under the guests. It is never ticked in advance, and the request cannot be sent with names until it is ticked. The customer also confirms that the guests they named agreed to share their details. Each quote stores when consent was given and which version of the text was shown.

You are the controller of this data. Ask for names only when you need them, and do not copy them into other systems.

When the details are deleted

Guest names and the free-text diet notes are deleted automatically after the event. You choose the number of days in Delete named diet details after the event: 30 to 365, 90 by default. The counts stay on the quote, so "2 x gluten-free" is still there for invoicing and complaints. Each quote shows the date its details will be deleted, and the customer's consent text tells them the same number of days.

Use your own wording

If the default heading and explanation do not sound like you, replace them. Under the toggle there is a Heading (optional) and an Explanation (optional). Leave them empty and CaterWay uses its own text, translated into every language your calculator offers. Fill them in and your wording is shown exactly as written, to customers in every language, so write it in the one your customers actually read.

Where the answers go

Onto the quote in your dashboard, into the email you receive, into the CSV export, and onto the signed PDF. From there you can print the kitchen an allergen sheet that puts the guests' needs next to what every dish on the order actually contains.

Good to know

• This is free on every plan. Charging for the question would mean the caterers most likely to skip it are the ones least able to afford the consequences.
• The customer can skip the step. A quote where they said nothing looks different from one where they said there is nothing, and the quote tells you which it was.
• A calculator that never asked shows "This calculator did not ask about special diets" on its quotes, so an empty field is never mistaken for a clean bill of health.