Hullabaloo Food is a Tasmanian business which specializes in producing allergy aware food for children. Hullabaloo Food started after many years of frustration. In 2004 my daughter was diagnosed as having major food allergies and multiple food intolerances. To date she is allergic to peanuts, all tree nuts, wheat, fish, soy, dairy, egg, yeast, watermelon, tomato, citrus fruits, sulphur dioxide, peas, rice, cocoa, sesame and cantaloupe, and to many creams and soaps that children generally use.

I thought that sourcing alternative foods for her to eat would be easy. But it wasn’t. While many business cater for gluten-free diets, or dairy-free, or soy-free, or preservative-free; no-one caters for children who are allergic to more than 15 different basic foods. Frustrated with the lack of suitable bread, biscuits and snack food for her I experimented with making my own.

Two years later we have developed an extensive range of foods which she can eat, which can be kept in the cupboard or in the car for emergencies, and most importantly taken to school. The manufacturing became commercial because I am not the only mother struggling to feed her children. There is a growing concern with behaviour problems in children and the use of food additives and preservatives.

Approximately 10% of children suffer from some food allergy. In a small number of situations these allergies are severe and put the child’s life at risk. There is a growing number of schools choosing to be “nut-free” because of the risk of anaphylactic reactions in some students, and finally there is a ground swell of concern from parents and school communities about the unhealthy nature of much of the food provided at school. State organisations and government departments all recognise a need for healthy but appealing snack food in school canteens.

Although all our products are manufactured and packaged to meet the needs of the allergic population, our goal is to produce a range of healthy allergy-aware foods that appeal to all children (not just those with allergies).

Hullabaloo Nut-free: Everything we produce is tree-nut and peanut free, and is manufactured in a dedicated nut-free kitchen. We do use seeds such as sunflower, pumpkin and coconut.

Hullabaloo Preservative-free: All Hullabaloo products are free from preservatives. We do not add preservatives or use ingredients which contain preservatives. Hullabaloo foods also use no artificial colours and flavours. We do use the following food additives; Bicarbonate of Soda, Cream of Tarter, Salt, Citric Acid, Tartaric Acid, Fructose, Guar Gum, Xantham Gum.

Hullabaloo Low Allergen: The Hullabaloo Range variously excludes the top 8 allergens; wheat, gluten, dairy, egg, soy, nuts, sesame and fish(?). We know that some people can be allergic to many more ingredients than these and so we also make foods which exclude potato, rice, corn, cocoa, fructose, and citric acid.

Many commercially available foods contain 30 of 50 ingredients. Many of these are not necessary for the product, but are introduced as manufacturers use prepared baking components. We believe that every additional ingredient excludes another allergic person. Our philosophy is to use as few ingredients as are necessary to get the desired result.

Hullabaloo Labelling: At present Australian labelling laws require manufacturers in general to list all ingredients that go into the food they product. They are required to highlight any which are regarded as allergens [that being the top 8 - peanuts, tree nuts, wheat, sesame, soy, dairy, egg, and sulphites]. They are able to list some ingredients simply as 'colour' or 'flavour' as long as they indicate if it includes one of the above allergens. If an ingredient represents less than 5% of the finished product then manufacturers are not required to list any sub-ingredients that went into that ingredient except if it contains one of the 8 identified allergens. If you are allergic to something other that the eight most common allergens then you will not know if the final product contains an ingredient that you cannot have.

Hullabaloo Food list ALL the ingredients that are included in each product. In general we use single-ingredient ingredients, but on those occassions where we use composite ingredients, we list ALL the ingredients even if they represent less than 5%.