Allergens advice for businesses

If you own a food business, you must provide allergen information about ingredients in the food you supply. If you don’t do this, you could make a customer seriously ill.

How to inform customers about allergen information

Businesses can tell you about allergens in one of two ways:

  1. you can provide allergen information in writing such as on a menu, a label or ticket by the food or;
  2. you can tell your customer about allergens in your food. You must display a notice telling your customers that allergen information is available if they ask you for it. You must tell customers what allergens are in the food when they ask you

It is good practice if you talk to customers about allergens to complete a menu chart. This lists all allergens in each food and is a reference tool for your staff about the allergens in a particular dish.

You should also keep charts complete and up to date. Remember to change the chart when you change a recipe or change an ingredient in a dish.

There is a requirement for a business to consider the management of allergens within their business premise. If your business uses the Safer Food, Better Business (SFBB) pack,there is a section within it which needs to be completed.

The Food Standards Agency has posters and useful information for businesses that you can download from their website

The law states that you must declare these 14 allergens

Cereals containing gluten:

  • Peanuts
  • Nuts
  • Milk
  • Soya
  • Mustard
  • Lupin
  • Eggs
  • Fish
  • Crustaceans
  • Molluscs
  • Sesame Seeds
  • Celery
  • Sulphur Dioxide (sulphites)

Other Allergens:

Customers can be allergic to other ingredients in foods. If a customer request food without certain ingredients you must check that the food you are providing doesn’t contain those ingredients and is safe for the customer to eat.

Keep your staff trained

All your staff need to know about allergens in the food that you sell.
View the Food Standards Agency online training course - you and your staff may find this course useful.

Taking orders via the phone or online

If you take orders online or over the phone you should offer information about allergens. You need to do this before the final order is placed and again when the food is delivered to the customer.

If you take an order over the phone, check if a customer needs any information about allergens while you are speaking to them.

Natasha’s Law

There will be new legal requirements from 1 October 2021. The requirements for prepacked for direct sale (PPDS) food labelling will change. The new labelling will help to protect customers, by providing allergen information on the packaging.

If your business produces PPDS food you will be required to label it with the name of the food and a full list of ingredients, with the allergenic ingredients emphasised in the list.

A business will need to check if their products require PPDS labelling and what they need to do to comply with the new rules.

You can find out more information on the Food Standards website

The Trading Standards Service is encouraging all consumers to ask for information about then ingredients in their food. The Service is encouraging consumers to contact the national Citizens Advice consumer helpline (www.citizensadvice.org.uk ) to report a business if the business doesn’t provide accurate allergen information.

This information will help the Service to engage with businesses to ensure they understand what action they need to take to comply with their legal obligations.