Natasha’s Prize: £10m to Prevent Food Allergy in the Next Generation. What Protects This One Now.
By Chris Carter, Managing Solicitor · June 2026 · Allergy Claims
Natasha’s Prize aims to prevent food allergy in the future. What does the law protect today?
People living with food allergy are already protected by law. Food businesses have a legal duty to give accurate allergen information, and the law recognises the harm caused when they fail to.
Natasha’s Law is the clearest part of that protection. Since 2021 it has required food prepacked for direct sale to carry a full ingredients list, a change driven by Natasha Ednan-Laperouse’s death.
The harm the law recognises is not only physical. A reaction can be serious, and the anxiety that follows, including a lasting fear around eating out, is real, even where there was no hospital admission.
Where a business gets it wrong, the law provides a route to redress. A claim must usually be brought within three years, and Carter & Carter has acted for people harmed by allergens in England and Wales since 2007.
On 1 June 2026, ten years after their daughter Natasha died, Tanya and Nadim Ednan-Laperouse launched Natasha’s Prize: a £10 million global research fund aimed at preventing food allergy before it begins. The Foundation describes it as the largest fund for food allergy research ever awarded in the UK. For the millions of families who live with allergy every day, it is genuinely hopeful news, and as a firm that has acted for people harmed by allergens since 2007, we are glad to see it.
The prize looks to the future. Its focus is the first 1,000 days, from conception to age two, the window scientists believe holds the best chance of stopping food allergy from developing at all. Researchers from many fields around the world have been invited to apply, and the funded work will be announced on 1 June 2027.
That future is worth striving for. This article simply sets alongside it something quieter and less talked about: the protection the law already gives the people living with food allergy now, while the science does its work.
What Natasha’s Prize Is, and Why It Was Created
Natasha Ednan-Laperouse was 15 when she died in July 2016 after eating a Pret a Manger baguette that contained sesame. The sesame was baked into the dough, was not visible in the food, and was not listed on the packaging. Her death led directly to Natasha’s Law, and her parents went on to establish the charity now known as Natasha’s Foundation in 2019.
Natasha’s Prize is the Foundation’s most ambitious project yet. The £10 million, five-year fund is aimed at prevention rather than treatment, on the basis that no baby is born with a food allergy. It will bring together scientists from many disciplines, including allergists, AI data analysts, dieticians, engineers, social and environmental scientists, microbiologists and epidemiologists, to find ways to stop food allergy developing in the first place. The space scientist Dame Dr Maggie Aderin is an ambassador for the prize, and several major retailers have made donations toward it.
It is, in the Foundation’s own words, an attempt to create a future without food allergy. That is the right ambition, and it deserves to be heard on its own terms.
Sources: Natasha’s Foundation and Food Standards Agency data, June 2026.
A Future Without Food Allergy Is the Goal. Here Is What the Law Protects Today.
Prevention research, however well funded, helps the children who have not yet been born. That is its purpose, and there is nothing wrong with it. But it is worth remembering that the law already does a good deal for the people living with food allergy today, and that protection is stronger than many people realise.
Natasha’s Law, properly the change made to the Food Information Regulations 2014, requires food that is prepacked for direct sale to carry a full list of ingredients with allergens emphasised. That covers the sandwiches, salads, cakes and similar items made and packed on the premises where they are sold. It exists because the information Natasha needed was not on the label that day.
Beyond labelling, every food business owes its customers a duty of care. If a business is told about an allergy and serves the allergen anyway, mislabels a product, fails to manage cross-contamination, or gives wrong information when asked, the law recognises the harm that follows. That is the quiet counterpart to the prize: the future is about prevention, the present is about responsibility.
When a Food Business Gets It Wrong
Many people assume the law only takes an interest after a hospital admission or an ambulance call. That is not how it works. A reaction can be frightening, painful and disruptive without being life-threatening, and the harm the law recognises includes the physical reaction itself and the anxiety that often follows, such as fear around eating out afterwards.
If any of this is close to home, the most useful thing to know is that the everyday record tends to tell the story: the receipt, the packaging, the menu, the message where an allergy was declared, a photograph of the meal. These ordinary things are what show what was asked for and what was served. There is no rush and no pressure in keeping them. They simply tend to fade if no one thinks to.
Carter & Carter has acted for people affected by allergens in England and Wales since 2007. If a food business caused your reaction, we are here when you are ready to talk, on 0800 652 0586. No pressure, and no obligation.
Chris Carter is the Managing Solicitor and founding partner of Carter & Carter Solicitors in Whaley Bridge, Derbyshire. Qualified in 1993, Chris has spent over 33 years helping people harmed by allergic reactions and food safety failures. Allergic reactions are one of the firm’s four specialist practice areas, and every claim is handled personally by a senior solicitor from start to finish. Read more about Carter & Carter.