Deacon Dining Allergen Friendly Recipe Innovation

A two day development session was held February 17-18, 2022 where WFU culinary professionals including Harvest Table Culinary Groups’ Director of Culinary Enablement, Chef Tony Pignagrande, joined other institutions in the Harvest Table Culinary Group, worked together on creating allergen friendly recipes. These recipes have been carefully designed to create more inclusive menu options for everyone to enjoy.

Students, Faculty, Staff and guests can try the new innovative recipes at the True Balance Station in the Pit. This station serves nutritious, wholesome food that eliminates the top 8 allergens. The program follows very strict guidelines from purchasing all the way to preparation and serving of the food at the station. For our recipe development, we procured True Balance approved products to make new recipes and also featured some new products that could become approved and used in the future (including allergen friendly ice cream, cookies, “tuna”, whipped cream, veggie burgers, butter, cheeses, and more)!

A variety of Chef De Cuisines, Executive Chefs, Registered Dietitians and Marketing Managers came from all over the country to work together to create these recipes and taste-test them with our students. Some of the new products were a hit such as the allergen friendly scooped ice cream, the whipped cream, and the butter. At the end, we added a total of 29 recipes to our recipe index for use at the True Balance station

Our Registered Dietitian, Madison Fishler, is available to aid those with dietary allergies or preferences, and provides individual and group nutrition tours to familiarize the campus community with the dining opportunities.