A mother-of-five with an acute dairy allergy died after eating a Pret a Manger vegan wrap that was contaminated with traces of milk, a coroner has found.
42-year-old Celia Marsh, a dental nurse from Melksham, Wiltshire, suffered anaphylaxis shortly after eating a super-veg rainbow flatbread from the chain’s store in Bath, Somerset, on December 27 in 2017.
The coconut yoghurt used as dressing from the Australian brand CoYo, which was licensed for manufacture in the UK to British firm Planet Coconut had traces of milk protein in it, senior coroner Maria Voisin concluded.
Celia Marsh died after eating a 'vegan' wrap
Leigh Day
Ms Voisin reached a narrative conclusion following a two-week inquest into Mrs Marsh’s death at Avon Coroner’s Court in Bristol.
During the two-week inquest, a chemist acknowledged the quantity of dairy in the wrap was too low to be measured with any degree of accuracy, but said he believed it definitely contained milk.
Pret-A-Manger falsely advertised a wrap as vegan
Steve Parsons
It is thought the contamination stemmed from the HG1 starch in the yoghurt.
It comes just six years after the death of 15-year-old Natasha Ednan-Laperouse, who died in 2016 after eating a Pret baguette containing sesame seeds, bought at Heathrow Airport.
Mrs Marsh had been on a post-Christmas shopping trip with her husband and three of her daughters when she went into Pret to buy something to eat at around 2pm.
She was declared dead less than two hours later.