Allergen Management in Restaurants and Cafés

Every restaurant and café in the UK has to tell customers which of the 14 major allergens are in the food it serves. Getting that information right, every time and for every dish, depends far more on your kitchen systems than on the wording of a menu.

Allergen management is the set of procedures that keeps the information accurate: how recipes are recorded, how substitutions are controlled, how staff answer questions and what happens when something goes wrong.

This guide covers the legal duties, the Food Standards Agency's current best practice, and the written procedures an environmental health officer will expect to see.

Allergen Duties at a Glance

Food type	What the law requires	FSA best practice
Non-prepacked (served to order)	Allergen information for every dish, in writing or verbally with a visible written notice explaining how to get it	Written information supported by a conversation
Prepacked for direct sale (PPDS)	Label with name and full ingredients list, allergens emphasised	Label checks built into the packing routine
Distance selling (online, delivery)	Allergen information before purchase and on delivery	Information on the menu or one click away
All food businesses	Staff trained on allergens; cross-contamination managed	Recorded training and a written allergen procedure

The 14 Allergens

The Food Information Regulations 2014 and retained EU food information law name 14 allergens that must be declared. The FSA lists them as:

• celery
• cereals containing gluten, such as wheat, rye, barley and oats
• crustaceans, such as prawns and crab
• eggs
• fish
• lupin
• milk
• molluscs, such as mussels and oysters
• mustard
• peanuts
• sesame
• soybeans
• sulphur dioxide and sulphites above 10 parts per million
• tree nuts, such as almonds, hazelnuts and walnuts

The duty covers allergens however they get into a dish. A sauce, a marinade, a garnish or a frying oil shared with battered fish all count.

Food Served to Order

For food that is not prepacked, which covers most of what restaurants and cafés serve, you must provide allergen information for every item that contains one of the 14. The FSA's allergen guidance lets you give it in writing, on a menu, chalkboard or information pack, or verbally.

If you rely on staff telling customers, you must display a written notice in a clearly visible place explaining how to get the information. "Please ask a member of staff about allergens" is the usual wording.

That meets the minimum. The FSA's view is that "written allergen information, supported by a conversation, works best for consumers", and its best practice guidance for non-prepacked food followed a campaign by the family of Owen Carey, who died after a reaction to a restaurant meal in 2017.

What Written Information Looks Like

Most businesses use an allergen matrix: dishes down one side, the 14 allergens across the top, with a tick where an allergen is present. The FSA publishes a free template matrix with its allergen guidance pack.

Where you use a group term such as "tree nuts" or "cereals containing gluten", say which nut or grain it is, or make sure staff can. A customer allergic to walnuts may be able to eat almonds.

Online menus and delivery apps need the same information before the customer orders. The FSA suggests it should be on the menu itself or no more than one click away.

Prepacked for Direct Sale and Natasha's Law

Food you package on site before a customer selects it, such as sandwiches in a chiller or salad pots on a counter, is prepacked for direct sale (PPDS). Since 1 October 2021, under the rules known as Natasha's Law, PPDS food must carry a label with the name of the food and a full ingredients list with the allergens emphasised, for example in bold.

The PPDS rules catch many cafés out. A sandwich made to order is non-prepacked; the same sandwich made at 7am and wrapped for the lunchtime fridge is PPDS and needs a full label.

Your procedure should list which products are PPDS, who prints the labels, and how labels are checked against the current recipe before the product goes out.

Recipe and Supplier Control

Allergen information is only as accurate as the recipe behind it. Most incidents in kitchens trace back to an unrecorded change rather than a mistake at the pass.

• Keep a written recipe for every dish, listing every component and sub-recipe.
• Check the ingredients specification for every bought-in product, and file it.
• When a supplier substitutes a product, check its allergens before it is used.
• Update the matrix and any PPDS labels the same day a recipe changes.
• Name one person, often the head chef, who signs off every change.

Specials boards are a common weak point. A daily special needs its allergens recorded before it goes on sale, in the same way as a permanent dish.

Cross-Contamination

You must manage the risk of allergens getting into food that should not contain them. Shared fryers, chopping boards, utensils, toasters and the flour in the air of a bakery kitchen are the usual sources.

Your procedure should cover separate or cleaned equipment, the order dishes are prepared in, storage of high-risk ingredients, and handwashing between tasks.

If you cannot prevent cross-contamination for a particular allergen, tell the customer. Saying "we cannot guarantee this dish is free from nuts" is honest and expected; serving a dish you think is probably fine is not.

Taking an Allergen Order

Front-of-house staff are the link between the customer and the kitchen. The procedure should set out a fixed routine so nothing depends on memory during a busy service.

1. Ask about allergies when taking every order, rather than waiting to be told.
2. Check the matrix, and ask the kitchen if there is any doubt.
3. Record the allergy clearly on the order ticket or till system.
4. Have the kitchen confirm it can make the dish safely.
5. Prepare and plate the dish separately, and have it carried out by a named person.
6. Confirm the allergy with the customer again when the dish arrives.

Staff should never guess. "I don't know, I'll check" protects the customer and the business.

Staff Training

The FSA says food businesses "must make sure that staff receive training on allergens", and it offers free online food allergy training. Training should cover the 14 allergens, how to read the matrix, the ordering routine and what to do in an emergency.

Record who was trained, when and on what, and refresh it at least once a year and whenever menus change significantly. Agency and seasonal staff need the same induction as permanent staff before they serve customers.

When Something Goes Wrong

The procedure needs an emergency section. Staff should know the signs of anaphylaxis, to call 999 immediately, and to help the customer use their own adrenaline auto-injector if they have one.

Afterwards, record what happened, keep the remaining food and packaging, and investigate how the allergen got into the dish. Serious incidents may need reporting to your local authority, and your insurer will expect to be told.

Near misses matter too. A customer who spots the wrong dish before eating it is a free warning about a gap in your system.

Buffets, Breakfasts and Self-Service

Self-service food is harder to control. Customers move serving spoons between dishes, and staff are not on hand to answer each question as the food is taken.

Label each dish at the point of service with its allergens, keep serving utensils with their own dish, and refill rather than top up so labels stay accurate. Hotel breakfast buffets and café counters need the same discipline as the main menu.

Some businesses offer to prepare an allergen-safe plate in the kitchen for a guest who asks. That is often safer than steering them to the buffet.

Free-From and Gluten-Free Claims

Describing a dish as "gluten-free" is a legal claim, not a description. Retained EU rules limit it to food containing no more than 20 milligrams of gluten per kilogram.

A kitchen that bakes with wheat flour will struggle to make that claim safely. "No gluten-containing ingredients", backed by a clear cross-contamination warning, is often the more honest wording, and the procedure should say which form of words you use.

"Nut-free" and "dairy-free" claims carry the same risk. Only make them where your controls genuinely exclude the allergen, from supplier to plate.

Reviewing the System

Review the allergen procedure at least once a year, and whenever the menu, a key supplier or the kitchen layout changes. A short internal audit works well: pick three dishes, check the recipe, the supplier specifications, the matrix and what a server tells a mystery customer.

Record what you find and what you change. That record shows an inspector the system is actively managed.

Enforcement

Local authority environmental health and trading standards officers enforce allergen law. If you ignore their advice they can serve an improvement notice, and failing to comply with one is an offence.

Allergen management also affects your food hygiene rating, because inspectors assess your food safety management system as a whole. A gap in allergen controls can pull down a score that is otherwise strong on cleaning and temperature control.

The Documents You Need

• An allergen management policy and procedure covering recipes, suppliers, preparation and service.
• An allergen matrix for every menu, including specials and seasonal items.
• A PPDS labelling procedure, if you package food on site.
• Supplier specification records.
• A training record for every member of staff.
• An incident and near-miss log.

These sit alongside your HACCP-based food safety management system and your food hygiene policies. For labelling questions on retail products, see our page on allergens and UK food labelling.

Allergen Management Policy and Procedure Writers

We write allergen management procedures for restaurants, cafés, pubs and hotels, built around your menu, your kitchen layout and the way your team actually takes orders. They are part of our wider hospitality policies service, priced from £65 per document.

For an overview of the other rules your venue works under, from licensing to tips, see our hospitality industry hub. Get a quote and we will confirm a fixed price before we start.