August 30, 2024
The mother of a 13-year-old girl who died after drinking Costa Coffee hot chocolate has told Channel 4 News she still hasn’t received an apology from the company.
Additional reporting by Jamie Roberton.
The mother of a 13-year-old girl who died after drinking Costa Coffee hot chocolate has told Channel 4 News she still hasn’t received an apology from the company.
Hannah Jacobs, who had been severely allergic to milk since childhood, died hours after drinking a drink she bought from a Costa franchise in Barking, east London on February 8, 2023.
A new inquest concluded that Costa Coffee failed to follow allergy safety practices, with a “failure to communicate” between Hannah’s mother and baristas also to blame for hot chocolate made with cow’s milk instead of soya milk being served.
Abi Duyile said Costa has not tried to apologize for the mistake that led to his daughter’s death.
“How do you feel now sitting in my position? Do you want to?” she said.
Ms Duyile said the Costa barista “looked at me funny” when she ordered two soy hot chocolates and asked that the jug be cleaned thoroughly.
“I said to him, ‘I’m sorry for the pain, but my son has a severe allergy to milk, but he was still looking at me, so I asked him if everything was okay.’
Duyile said she collected the two drinks and began walking to a nearby dentist, where Hannah “actually told me off because she was so fussy.”
“I told him: I will not let anyone play with your life.”
After only one drink, Hannah ran to the dentist’s bathroom, then called her mother and said, “This is not soy milk.”
Ms Duyile said Hannah was quickly “in a lot of pain” due to a severe allergic reaction and described the ambulance crew’s efforts to save her life.
“I realized there was no heartbeat on the monitor. I just passed out and started screaming.
The coroner also noted that on the day of her death, “Hannah and her mother did not bring the prescribed EpiPen.”
A postmortem examination found Hannah died after suffering a hypersensitivity anaphylactic reaction triggered by an ingredient in the hot chocolate.
The inquest heard evidence that one Costa barista working in the east London branch had been using Google Translate during training and brought his wife with him to work to help with her English skills.
Another Costa worker admitted failing the mandatory allergen test 20 times before passing.
“The area manager has to come in and be like, what’s going on?” Ms. Duyile said.
“Allergies are a deadly, deadly thing. No one wants to be responsible for anyone dying. But if you don’t follow the procedures, this will be the result.
Duyile said life without Hannah was “actually getting harder every day”, describing her daughter as “feisty, outgoing, adventurous” who would make an “amazing lawyer.”
“We can’t lose our children like this. It’s not fair for mothers to lose their children – the world needs to know that allergies are not a funny joke.
Responding to Abi Duyile’s interview, a Costa Coffee spokesperson told Channel 4 News:
“Hannah’s loss is a tragedy, and our sincere thoughts go out to her family and friends. We have strict allergy training and procedures in place to help reduce the risk to our customers who suffer from allergens, however, we agree with the Coroner’s conclusion that our allergen process was not carried out that day in our franchise partner stores.We continue to review what else we can do while training our team members to reduce the risk to customers with allergies and provide clear communication.
In addition:
“Costa Coffee has collaborated with the Natasha Allergy Research Foundation since 2021 and is one of the founding partners of the Natasha Clinical Trial, which investigates everyday food as a treatment for food allergies. Costa Coffee strongly supports the work of the Foundation, which is in line with our commitment to safety and well-being of our customers, with strict allergy training and procedures to help reduce the risk to our customers who suffer from allergies. So we support the Foundation’s call for an Allergen Tsar.
