Allergen information is one of the few areas where a restaurant's obligations are not a matter of taste or marketing. They are written into law, they apply whether you run a bistro or a fine-dining room, and getting them wrong can have consequences that go well beyond a bad review. The good news is that the rules are clearer than most owners assume, and once the information is structured properly, keeping it right is mostly a matter of routine.
This guide lays out what restaurants in the European Union and the United Kingdom actually need to know: the 14 regulated allergens, what the core regulation requires for the food you serve at the table, the additional UK rule known as Natasha's Law, the mistakes that catch kitchens out, and how to present allergen information clearly, including across languages for tourists. We will be specific where the law is specific and careful where it is not.
Important. This article is general guidance, not legal advice. Allergen law is enforced locally and the detail can vary between member states. Always confirm your exact obligations with your local food safety authority before relying on anything here.
The 14 allergens you must be able to declare
Across the EU and the UK, the same fourteen allergens sit at the centre of the rules. Annex II of Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011 lists 14 substances or products that cause allergies or intolerances and must always be declared when present, according to the Food Standards Agency, and in the UK these are the same 14 allergens that the Food Standards Agency enforces. They are:
- Cereals containing gluten (wheat, rye, barley, oats)
- Crustaceans
- Eggs
- Fish
- Peanuts
- Soybeans
- Milk
- Tree nuts (almond, hazelnut, walnut, cashew, pecan, Brazil nut, pistachio, macadamia)
- Celery
- Mustard
- Sesame
- Sulphur dioxide and sulphites (above 10 mg/kg or 10 mg/litre)
- Lupin
- Molluscs
A few of these surprise people. Celery hides in stock and soup bases. Sulphites turn up in wine and dried fruit. Mustard is in many dressings and sauces, and lupin flour appears in some breads and pastries. The point of the list is precisely that a guest cannot be expected to know where these ingredients are. The restaurant can, and must be able to say.
What EU Regulation 1169/2011 requires
The EU-wide law governing allergen information is Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011, often called the Food Information to Consumers Regulation. According to the European Commission, it entered into application on 13 December 2014, with the separate nutrition-declaration obligation applying since 13 December 2016. The full legal text, including Annex II with the 14 allergens, is published on EUR-Lex.
The change that matters most for restaurants is this. According to the European Commission, a key shift introduced by the regulation is that allergen information became mandatory for non-prepacked food, including food sold loose in restaurants and cafes. Earlier EU legislation had only required allergen labelling on prepacked foods. In plain terms: the dish you cook to order and carry to the table is now covered, not just the packaged goods on a shelf.
It does not have to be on the menu
Here is the part owners most often get wrong, in both directions. For non-prepacked food in restaurants and cafes, the business must make allergen information available to the customer, but according to the Food Standards Agency it does not have to be on the menu itself. It can be provided in writing, for example on the menu, a chalkboard, or an information pack, or signposted to where written or spoken information can be obtained, as long as it is accurate and available.
So a small chalkboard pointing guests to a staffed allergen folder is, in principle, compliant. What is not acceptable is information that is wrong, out of date, or impossible to obtain when a guest asks. The legal bar is accuracy and availability, not a specific format. That distinction is exactly why a structured, always-current source beats a laminated card that drifts out of date.
The two parts to get right. Availability: a guest must be able to get the allergen information for any dish. Accuracy: that information must match what is actually in the dish today, not last season. A digital menu does not change the law, but it makes both far easier to hold true at once.
The UK Natasha's Law and PPDS food
The UK shares the same 14 allergens and the same non-prepacked rules, with one important addition. According to the Food Standards Agency, Natasha's Law, formally the Food Information Amendment, took effect on 1 October 2021. It is named after Natasha Ednan-Laperouse, who died aged 15 after an allergic reaction to sesame in a baguette that carried no allergen label. The law exists because a gap in labelling cost a life, which is worth remembering when this work feels like paperwork.
Natasha's Law applies specifically to prepacked for direct sale, or PPDS, food. According to the Food Standards Agency, that means food packaged at the same place it is offered or sold to the consumer, and already in that packaging before being ordered. A sandwich made on-site and placed in a wrapper before sale is the classic example. It does not change the rules for food made to order and served unpackaged, which remains covered by the general non-prepacked allergen rules.
For PPDS food, the requirement is more specific. According to the Food Standards Agency, PPDS food must be labelled with the name of the food and a full ingredients list, with any of the 14 allergens emphasised within that ingredients list, for example in bold, italics, or a different colour. The Agency notes the rule applies to a wide range of businesses, including independent restaurants, cafes, pubs, coffee shops, restaurant chains, and bakeries. So a restaurant that also pre-packs grab-and-go items has two regimes running side by side: signposted information for the table, and full emphasised labels on the packaged items.
Where restaurants commonly get it wrong
Most allergen failures are not acts of bad faith. They are drift, ambiguity, and broken handoffs. The ones that come up again and again:
- The recipe changes, the allergen note does not. A supplier switch or a new sauce quietly introduces an allergen, and the printed card still says otherwise. This is the single most common gap, and the hardest to catch on paper.
- Verbal-only answers that depend on one person. If only the head chef knows what is in the dish, the information is not reliably available when that person is off shift. The rule is about availability to the guest, not to the kitchen.
- Confusing allergens with dietary tags. Vegetarian or vegan labelling is helpful, but it is not the same as a regulated allergen declaration. A vegan dish can still contain sesame, soy, or gluten.
- Treating may contain as a free pass. Cross-contamination warnings are useful and honest, but they do not replace declaring an allergen that is actually an ingredient.
- Tourists left without their language. An allergen note a guest cannot read is, for that guest, not available at all. In a tourist-facing room this is both a safety gap and, in spirit, a compliance one.
How to present allergen information clearly
The legal minimum is accuracy and availability. The practical goal is a guest who can answer their own question in seconds, calmly, without flagging down a server mid-service. A few principles hold regardless of format:
- Tie allergens to the individual dish, not to a single page at the back. A guest cares about the one plate in front of them.
- Use plain words. "Contains: milk, eggs, gluten (wheat)" is clearer than a grid of cryptic symbols, especially for a guest reading under pressure.
- Keep one source of truth. When the same allergen facts feed the menu, the staff folder, and any printed card, they cannot contradict each other.
- Make it readable in the guest's language. For tourists, a misunderstanding here is a safety issue, not an inconvenience. The same logic that drives a multilingual restaurant menu applies with extra force to allergens.
How a digital menu helps
A digital menu does not change your legal obligations, and it cannot know what is in a dish unless you tell it. What it does is remove most of the friction that lets allergen information drift out of date. We will be honest about the boundary: the tool keeps the information consistent, available, and translated, but the accuracy of what you enter remains your responsibility.
Per-dish allergen tagging
Each dish carries its own allergen set, shown inline rather than buried in a separate document. A guest scanning the menu sees the relevant allergens on the dish they are considering, which is exactly where the question arises. At Opnclo, those per-dish allergens also flow through to the restaurant's public page and its machine-readable exports, so the same facts are presented consistently wherever the menu appears.
Instant updates when a recipe changes
This is where paper struggles most. When a supplier changes or a sauce is reformulated, the allergen note can be corrected in seconds and is live on every table at once. There is no obsolete batch of printed cards still claiming the old recipe, which is the precise failure mode that catches kitchens out. The same instant-update advantage that makes digital menus practical for daily specials, covered in our complete guide to QR code menus, matters far more when the field in question is allergens.
Consistent translation for tourists
For a guest reading in their own language, allergen information stops being a guessing game. The dish shows its allergens in the language they switched to, so the tourist who cannot read the local language is not left relying on a hurried verbal exchange across a busy room. The facts are yours to keep accurate; the menu's job is to present them clearly to everyone at the same time.
Machine-readable output for AI assistants
Increasingly, guests ask an AI assistant rather than search a website. When a restaurant's menu is structured, the allergen detail can be read by those assistants too, so a guest asking "does this restaurant have gluten-free options" gets an answer grounded in the restaurant's own data rather than a guess. It is a quieter benefit than the others, but it is part of why structured allergen data is worth keeping in good order.
A short, honest summary
The core of allergen compliance is not complicated. Know the 14 allergens. Make accurate information available for every dish you serve, in whatever written or signposted form suits your room. If you pre-pack food for direct sale in the UK, give those items a full ingredients list with the allergens emphasised. Keep it all current as recipes change, and make it readable for the guests in front of you, whatever language they speak.
A digital menu will not do the thinking for you, but it removes most of the ways this slips. It keeps the allergen detail tied to each dish, lets you correct a recipe in seconds, and presents the same facts clearly across languages and to the AI assistants guests now ask. If you want to see how that looks in practice, you can browse live restaurant pages in our restaurants directory, or set yours up directly.
A final reminder. This guide is general guidance, not legal advice. Allergen rules are enforced locally and can differ in detail between countries. Before you rely on any setup, confirm your obligations with your local food safety authority. The references in this article point to the official sources: the European Commission, EUR-Lex, and the UK Food Standards Agency.
Frequently asked questions
How many allergens must a restaurant declare?
Fourteen. According to the Food Standards Agency, Annex II of Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011 lists 14 substances or products that must always be declared when present, and the UK enforces the same 14: cereals containing gluten, crustaceans, eggs, fish, peanuts, soybeans, milk, tree nuts, celery, mustard, sesame, sulphur dioxide and sulphites, lupin, and molluscs.
Does allergen information have to be printed on the menu?
For non-prepacked food in restaurants and cafes, no. According to the Food Standards Agency, the information must be made available, but it can be on the menu, a chalkboard, or an information pack, or signposted to where it can be obtained, as long as it is accurate and available. This is general guidance, not legal advice; confirm with your local food safety authority.
What is Natasha's Law and does it apply to my restaurant?
According to the Food Standards Agency, Natasha's Law took effect in the UK on 1 October 2021 and applies to prepacked for direct sale (PPDS) food: items packaged on-site and in that packaging before being ordered. Those items need a full ingredients list with the 14 allergens emphasised. Food made to order and served unpackaged stays under the general non-prepacked rules.
Can a digital menu handle allergen information across languages?
Yes. A digital menu can carry allergen detail per dish and present it in the guest's own language, which matters most in tourist-facing rooms. The accuracy of the facts you enter remains your responsibility, but the menu shows them clearly and consistently to every guest at once.