Sunderland’s Seaglass Café helps raise awareness for coeliac disease
Written by Lily Ballentine on 16th May 2025
As part of their campaign for coeliac awareness month, The Seaglass Café in Sunderland are helping to spread the word about coeliac disease – Lily Ballentine reports.
May 1 marked the beginning of Coeliac Awareness Month 2025.
Coeliac disease is an autoimmune condition that affects 1 in 100 people in the UK. Despite this, only 36% are medically diagnosed, meaning there are almost half a million people who are living undiagnosed in the UK.
For someone with coeliac disease, their immune system attacks their tissues when they eat gluten. This causes damage to the gut lining, preventing nutrients from being absorbed properly. This can cause a variety of symptoms and the only treatment is a strict gluten-free diet.
One small business that is hoping to help raise awareness of this condition is The Seaglass Café, in Sunderland.
Known as “the allergy control kitchen”, the café caters for a range of dietary requirements.
Given that most of the food on the menu does not contain gluten, the kitchen is almost entirely dedicated to gluten-free (apart from a small corner where gluten-containing bread and rolls are kept).
What’s more, unlike many other businesses, The Seaglass Café takes pride in making as much in-house as possible, including all of their cakes. This way, manager and chef James Usher knows exactly what ingredients are used.
He said: “It became a completely coeliac-safe space.”
However, throughout May, the café is going one step further, to help raise awareness for coeliac disease.
In addition to placing educational posters all around the café and putting posts on their social media, they are also charging an additional 50p for gluten-containing meals.
The aim of this is to raise awareness by drawing attention to the extra charge that, at many other places, would be added to gluten-free dishes.
Mr Usher said: “It’s always been our motto, that we don’t charge extra for those who don’t have a choice, because a lot of people don’t have the choice.”
So far, the campaign has met with success, as the 50p charge has helped to educate people who have not only never heard of coeliac disease, but also gluten allergies and intolerances.
To find out more about coeliac disease, please click here or click here
To find out more about Coeliac Awareness Month 2025, please click here.
