Once again, activism on the part of the food allergy community has forced a business to take action.
As we reported last week, the Playalinda Brewing Co made the uniquely dimwitted decision to market a beer they named “Epi Pen Peanut Butter Ale”, an overt slap at everyone with food allergies. This after the debacle that forced Uber Eats — which planned to make light of a man suffering full-blown anaphylaxis — to edit their Super Bowl commercial before it aired during the game.
We provided a means for our readers to send Playalinda emails expressing their outrage at the naming of the product, and we’re happy to report that our collective action was effective in waking Playalinda from their collective stupor.
We received this message from the company on Thursday:
Dear Snack Safely, Thank you so much for sharing our label with the allergen community and encouraging them to reach out and sharing their concerns, we completely understand and want to assure you that our intention with the name 'Epi Pen' was never to make light of allergies. Our youngest child has a severe peanut/tree nut allergy, and in the 5+ years of us brewing and canning this beer, we feel that we have managed to educate and provide knowledge about this life saving device to many of our non-allergy affected friends who were previously not familiar with it in our community/tap room (which is the only place this beer was sold). We deeply value the safety and well-being of all our guests, our own family, and all those who struggle with allergy safety in their day to day lives. We truly apologize that it has caused any offense as that was never our intention. We sincerely appreciate everyone sharing their feedback, and we have taken their input under advisement and removed this beer name from our lineup. Again, thank you for encouraging everyone to reach out to share their perspective. Regards, Playalinda Brewing Co.
We thank you, our readers, for joining us in the effort to right this wrong.
Once again, this incident shows that activism by our community can — and does — effect change for the benefit of all.
Sincerely,
Dave Bloom
CEO, SnackSafely.com
Editorial: Exploiting Food Allergies for Profit
