Savannah, GA

Emma Wu
SERVICE DESIGN · FALL 2025

Allergy-safe dining, from the menu to the kitchen.

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A service design research white paper on why eating out is still a risk for people with food allergies, and how restaurants can turn safety into trust.

Date
Fall 2025 · 10 weeks
Course
SERV-727 Visualizing Services · SCAD
Team
Team SafeDining: Alex Backlund, Soumya Buttan, Riley Chen, Minwei Wu
Outputs
White paper · customer journey map · ecosystem map · infographics
Still from the vision film: a diner checking allergy information on her phone Infographic poster: customer journey map Still from the vision film: diners and staff at an outdoor table Infographic poster: ecosystem map

My role

Service designer on a four-person team, from desk research and co-creation workshops to the journey map, the infographics and the printed white paper.

  • Secondary & primary research
  • Co-creation workshops
  • Customer journey map
  • Ecosystem map & infographics
  • White paper
01

The problem

Telling the server isn’t enough.

For people with food allergies, every order is a negotiation. They check websites, call ahead and repeat themselves at the table, yet over half of allergic reactions happen even after they disclose their allergy.

33MAmerican adults with food allergies, 1 in 9
5.6Mchildren, 1 in 13
53.9%of reactions happen after disclosure
3.4MER visits a year from food allergies

The Big 9 allergens cause about 90% of reactions

0126.1%Shellfish
0217.1%Milk
0316.2%Peanuts
0410.8%Tree nuts
058.1%Fish
067.2%Egg
077.2%Wheat
085.4%Soy
091.8%Sesame
FARE, Food Allergy Research & EducationFor someone with food allergies, eating out isn’t just about food. It’s about trust.
02

Research

From the data, to the dining room.

12in-depth interviews with diners and caregivers
2co-creation workshops, current and future state
1field study at Sly’s, Savannah

We reviewed research and industry data from FARE, CDC/EHS-Net, the FDA and Apicbase. Six findings shaped our strategy.

  1. 01

    Training gaps persist

    Only 44% of restaurant staff receive allergy training, and over 10% still believe “small amounts” of allergens are safe.

  2. 02

    Communication breaks down

    53.9% of reactions happen even after disclosure, through verbal miscommunication between servers and the kitchen.

  3. 03

    Transparency deficit

    Only 22% of restaurants provide allergen menus, and nearly 45% lack ingredient lists or recipes.

  4. 04

    Emotional safety matters

    Diners face anxiety and isolation. Empathy and visible safety cues matter as much as physical safety.

  5. 05

    Regulation is fragmented

    Unlike packaged food, restaurant allergen disclosure isn’t federally mandated, so standards vary by state.

  6. 06

    A growing market

    The global allergy-free food market is projected to reach $102.8 billion by 2035.

A short online survey of diners with allergies, caregivers and restaurant staff, to see how each side navigates safety while eating out.

  • Most diners check websites, menus and reviews, or call ahead, because allergen information is unclear or missing.
  • Many find menu labels confusing and aren’t sure staff understand their needs.
  • Some have had reactions despite disclosing their allergy.

What they want is trust, not luck: clearer menus, better-trained staff and reliable systems.

“Have a clear detailed menu that explains what’s in the food.”
“List out our ingredients and bold allergens. The big issue isn’t popular franchises, it’s the smaller community-run places that haven’t organized allergen warnings.”
Survey participants

12 in-depth interviews with people managing allergies at different severity levels, and caregivers who advocate for safe meals on others’ behalf.

  • What was it like when you first arrived at the restaurant?
  • What kinds of interactions did you have with the staff?
  • How did those conversations feel to you?
  • How did you go about deciding what to order?
  • If you imagine the “ideal” dining experience, what comes to mind?

Dining out is shaped less by the food than by uncertainty, emotional labour and fragile communication. People apologise for their needs, and moments of safety depend on individual staff, not systems.

Two team members during an interview, with sticky notes on the table

An ethnographic study at Sly’s in Savannah, GA, watching real-time service and the kitchen workflow.

  • Allergy protocols varied a lot from one staff member to the next.
  • Many relied on verbal reminders or personal judgment.
  • Cross-contact steps weren’t built into the workflow.
  • Front-of-house to kitchen communication lacked structure or records.
Chalkboard menu at Sly’s Sliders Sly’s storefront Stickers and notices on the restaurant door
Workshop 1: preparation materials and participant sticky notes Workshop 1

Current-state roleplay

An allergen-card icebreaker, then a restaurant role-play as diners, servers, chefs, suppliers and regulators. Walking the journey showed where communication breaks and trust fails.

Workshop 2: guided booklets and a 2025 versus 2035 sticky-note board Workshop 2

Future-state co-creation

“Welcome to 2035.” With a guided booklet, each role wrote their ideal dining journey, then debated and refined it in a challenge round. Safety, they agreed, has to live in systems, not people.

03

Customer journey

Meet Agnes, who just wants dinner with friends.

Agnes Harkness

Single midlife woman in Savannah with serious multiple allergies.

Agnes, the persona, reading a menu in a diner booth
  • Savannah, GA
  • 42, bookstore manager
  • Eats out 5–6 times a week
  • Severe peanut allergy

“I just want to eat safely without calling five restaurants first.”

Goals

  • Safe food
  • Quick and easy
  • Restaurants she can trust

Pain points

  • Worries about cross-contact
  • Stressed about quizzing waiters on ingredients

Tomorrow Agnes is hosting a small dinner with friends. They want to try somewhere new, but with her allergies, every choice has to be made carefully.

We followed her through seven stages, from the first pang of hunger to the review she leaves afterwards, mapping her jobs to be done, needs and emotions at each one. Her mood dips hardest while searching, walking in and ordering, where information is missing and staff knowledge is a gamble. Scoring importance against satisfaction showed where to act first.

Allergy-friendly dining customer journey map: stages, touchpoints, emotions, jobs to be done, needs, pain points, opportunities and opportunity scores
04

Ecosystem analysis

Many players, shared responsibility.

Food allergy safety doesn’t fail in isolation, it fails in connection. Suppliers, restaurants, platforms, regulators and diners each carry part of the responsibility, yet no one can guarantee safety alone.

The system is complex, fragmented and unevenly informed, leaving gaps exactly where trust, data and accountability should flow.

Allergy-friendly dining ecosystem map: the restaurant at the centre, surrounded by suppliers, certification bodies, review and delivery platforms, regulators, advocacy groups, the medical system and tourism
Six kinds of flow (service, money, physical goods, information, intangible value and regulation) between everyone who touches the meal.

How trust travels: a relay race from regulation to plate

  1. 01 · Micro

    Trust begins with people

    Diners, friends and family, chefs, servers and managers decide, in the moment, whether the meal is safe.

  2. 02 · Meso

    The support network

    Suppliers, training providers, review platforms and certifiers make sure information is conveyed, applied and tracked.

  3. 03 · Macro

    The system conditions

    Regulators, legal frameworks and advocacy groups set the rules everyone else works within.

Trust cannot rely on individual goodwill; it must be embedded within the system itself.
Where the chain breaks

Lost in the middle

Supplier labels don’t match, menus lag behind the kitchen, and spoken reminders replace records. A single miscommunication quietly erodes trust.

Loss in transmission

Rules that never reach the table

Standards should flow down from regulators, through training and platforms, to frontline staff. Instead each tier reads “safety” its own way.

When no one owns the whole

Risk lands on the diner

Every stakeholder fixes problems inside its own boundary. Without a connecting layer, every failure travels down the chain to the person eating.

05 Identified problems

Lost in conversationThe illusion of transparencyThe anxiety of eatingUntrained to careThe lost identity of ingredients

Problem 01 / 05Problem 02 / 05Problem 03 / 05Problem 04 / 05Problem 05 / 05

Allergy details travel by word of mouth, from diner to server to chef. Each retelling invites error, and 53.9% of reactions happen after the diner has spoken up.

44.8% of restaurants had no ingredient lists or recipes for most of the menu. “Transparency” stops at a few vague labels.

Every order and double-check carries risk. 74% of parents of children with allergies find dining out challenging.

Only 44% of service staff get any allergy training, and 11.9% of managers believe “small amounts” are safe.

Ingredients start with clear origins and allergen data, then lose their names somewhere between supplier and plate.

06

Opportunity areas

Turn risk into confidence.

Six places where restaurants, platforms and regulators can move from reacting to incidents to designing for trust. Each is backed by a real-world case study in the white paper.

  1. #01Standardize communication pathways: make allergy communication a system, not a skill.
  2. #02Make the invisible visible: menus, displays and cues that show safety in action.
  3. #03Trust starts before you arrive: clear allergy-friendly information online, before the visit.
  4. #04Reimagine training as a culture of care, with real scenarios and real-time feedback.
  5. #05Let safety travel with every ingredient, through one shared data language from supplier to plate.
  6. #06One framework for regulation and accountability, across suppliers, platforms and restaurants.
07

Vision film

Welcome to 2035.

Our team’s vision video follows a diner through a meal where safety is built in: from finding trustworthy information before she goes, to a table where staff and kitchen share the same picture of her allergy.

08

Infographics

Research you can read across a room.

Two printed posters carry the journey and the ecosystem, each with a QR code to its interactive online version. Click to look closer.

Infographic poster: Between Anxiety and Assurance, the customer journey map
Between Anxiety and Assurance · customer journey map
Infographic poster: Who Keeps the Meal Safe, the ecosystem map
Who Keeps the Meal Safe? · ecosystem map
09

The white paper

Where care is the recipe, and safety is the standard.

The final deliverable: an 82-page printed white paper. Turn the pages below.

Cover

Drag a page corner to turn it, or click, swipe, or use ← →

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