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PA Enterprise

Businesses urged to rethink food

preparation and coffee free spaces

by smell loss charity Abscent

Wake up but don’t smell the coffee! As workers prepare to return to shared offices,
the UK’s leading smell loss charity, AbScent, warns that employers must take loss
of sense of smell and taste seriously and plan for its impact on the workplace.

More than 3.85 million people in the UK are
currently affected by smell loss, which manifests
primarily in two forms: Anosmia is the inability to
smell or taste to varying degrees of severity; and
parosmia which distorts sense of smell so that
innocuous items may smell foul e.g. coffee smells
like sewage, and people may smell things that
are not there e.g. cigarettes.
Chrissi Kelly, Founder, AbScent, said; “We’ve
all worked in offices where we smell people
heating lunches in the microwave, or strong
vats of wafting coffee. For the millions of people
with parosmia this is going to be unbearable
and nauseating. Hot drinks, hot food, and
snacks prepared in a microwave may well smell
like rotting meat, urine, or faeces to someone 1. Coffee Free Spaces
with parosmia. This is a distortion of olfactory Coffee is the most reported problem that
perception and can be unbearable to the person parosmics experience with people smelling
experiencing it. When foods are hot or heating, coffee as rotten meat, sulphur or faeces. Hot
the perception of the odour is greater than at coffee is the worst offender and the smell is
room temperature. Thus tea kitchens and food worse than the taste. Some people can tolerate
preparation areas can be great sources of distress a cold brew coffee from the fridge. We advise
for parosmics. For those experiencing smell creating dedicated ‘Coffee Free Spaces’ where no
problems, there can be disastrous repercussions hot coffee is brewed or consumed.
for mental health, happiness, and relationships.”

But she adds; “Businesses can help their 2. Move microwaves into kitchens / closed areas
employees by preparing to support people with Nothing could be worse for a parosmic than an
anosmia and parosmia by taking simple and environment where people are openly heating
straightforward steps.” Here is a guide to the 5 food. Whether it is leftovers or ready meals the
things that businesses can do to support people wafting smells of an office microwave will be
in an office environment. horrific for someone suffering with parosmia.

PA Enterprise is published by
14 August/September 2021