The mother of a 13-year-old girl who died after drinking a Costa Coffee hot chocolate has told Channel 4 News she still hasn’t received an apology from the firm.
Additional reporting by Jamie Roberton.
The mother of a 13-year-old girl who died after drinking a Costa Coffee hot chocolate has told Channel 4 News that she has still not received an apology from the firm.
Hannah Jacobs, who had been severely allergic to dairy since she was a toddler, died hours after taking just one sip of the drink purchased from a Costa franchise in Barking, east London on 8th February 2023.
A recent inquest concluded that Costa Coffee had failed to follow allergy safety practices, with a “failure of communication” between Hannah’s mother and baristas also blamed for hot chocolate made with cows’ milk instead of soya milk being served.
Abi Duyile said Costa has not made any attempt to apologise for the failings that led to the death of her daughter.
“How would you feel sitting in my position right now? Would you like it?” she said.
Ms Duyile said the Costa barista was “looking at me funny” when she ordered the two soya hot chocolates and requested that the jug be cleaned thoroughly.
“I said to her, ‘I’m sorry to be a pain but my child has got a severe allergy to dairy milk but she was still looking at me so I asked if everything was ok.”
Ms Duyile said she collected the two drinks and began walking to the nearby dentist where Hannah “was literally telling me off for being too fussy.”
“I said to her: I’m not about to let anyone play with your life.”
After taking just one sip of the drink, Hannah dashed to the dentist’s toilet where she called her mother and said, “that was not soya milk.”
Ms Duyile said Hannah was quickly in “so much pain” as the severe allergic reaction took hold and described the frantic attempts of the ambulance crew to save her life.
“I knew when there was no heartbeat on the monitor that was it. I just lost it and started screaming.”
The coroner also noted that on the day of her death, “neither Hannah nor her mother were carrying an EpiPen that had been prescribed.”
A postmortem examination found Hannah died after suffering a hypersensitive anaphylactic reaction triggered by an ingredient in the hot chocolate.
The inquest heard evidence that one Costa barista who worked at the east London branch had used Google Translate during training and brought her husband with her to work in order to help with her English language skills.
Another Costa worker admitted failing the compulsory allergen test 20 times before passing.
“The area manager should have gone in there and been like, what is going on?” Ms Duyile said.
“Allergy is a deadly, deadly thing. Nobody wants to be responsible for anybody dying. But if you don’t follow procedure, this is going to be the outcome.”
Ms Duyile said life without Hannah “literally gets harder every day”, describing her daughter as “feisty, outgoing, adventurous” who would have made an “amazing lawyer.”
“We cannot be losing our kids like this. It’s not fair for any mother to lose a child – the world needs to know that allergy is not a funny joke.”
Responding to Abi Duyile’s interview, a Costa Coffee spokesperson told Channel 4 News:
“The loss of Hannah is a tragedy, and our heartfelt thoughts remain with her family and friends. We have strict allergy training and procedures in-place to help to minimise the risk to those customers who suffer from allergens, however, we agree with the Coroner’s conclusion that our allergen process was not followed that day at our franchise partner store. We continue to review what more we can do when training team members to help to minimise the risk to those customers who have allergies and provide clear communication.”
In addition:
“Costa Coffee has partnered with The Natasha Allergy Research Foundation since 2021 and is one of the founding partners of the Natasha Clinical Trial, which is investigating everyday foods as a treatment for food allergy. Costa Coffee is hugely supportive of the work of the Foundation, which aligns to our commitment to customer safety and wellbeing, with strict allergy training and procedures in-place to help to minimise the risk to those customers who suffer from allergies. As such, we are supporting the Foundations call for an Allergen Tsar.”