Allergen Declarations for Online Menus: A Practical Guide

In the UK, allergen regulations are not guidelines or best practice — they are law. The Food Information Regulations 2014 (which implement EU Regulation 1169/2011, retained after Brexit) require all food businesses to provide allergen information to customers. For distance selling — which includes online ordering, phone orders, and delivery apps — this information must be available before the customer completes their purchase and again when the food is delivered.

Natasha's Law, which came into effect in October 2021, strengthened these requirements further. Named after Natasha Ednan-Laperouse, who died from an allergic reaction to a Pret a Manger baguette in 2016, the law requires all food that is prepacked for direct sale (PPDS) to carry a full ingredients list with the 14 major allergens clearly emphasised. While Natasha's Law specifically targets PPDS foods, it has raised the bar for allergen transparency across the entire food industry. Customers now expect clear, upfront allergen information wherever they buy food.

The 14 major allergens that must be declared are:

• Celery — including celeriac, found in stocks, soups, and seasoning blends
• Cereals containing gluten — wheat, rye, barley, oats, spelt, and kamut, including derivatives like breadcrumbs and soy sauce
• Crustaceans — prawns, crab, lobster, and crayfish
• Eggs — including those used in mayonnaise, cakes, pasta, and quiche
• Fish — including fish sauce, Worcestershire sauce, and some Asian condiments
• Lupin — a legume found in some flour blends and continental bread
• Milk — including butter, cheese, cream, yoghurt, and casein
• Molluscs — mussels, oysters, squid, and snails
• Mustard — including mustard powder, seeds, leaves, and prepared mustard
• Nuts — almonds, hazelnuts, walnuts, cashews, pecans, Brazil nuts, pistachios, macadamia nuts, and their oils
• Peanuts — including peanut oil and groundnuts (distinct from tree nuts)
• Sesame seeds — found in tahini, hummus, bread, and many Asian dishes
• Soya — including tofu, soy sauce, edamame, and soya lecithin (used as an emulsifier in many processed foods)
• Sulphur dioxide and sulphites — at concentrations above 10mg/kg, found in dried fruit, wine, pickled foods, and some sausages

For online menus, "clearly displayed" means the allergen information must be visible on the page where the customer browses and selects items — not hidden behind a link that says "ask staff" or buried in the terms and conditions. If a customer with a peanut allergy cannot see that your satay chicken contains peanuts before adding it to their basket, you are not compliant. This is not optional and enforcement is taken seriously. Local authorities can issue improvement notices, and in serious cases, businesses face prosecution.

Knowing the regulations is one thing; implementing them in a way that is practical, maintainable, and genuinely useful for customers is another. The good news is that once you set up a proper system, keeping it current requires minimal effort.

Start with a full recipe audit. Go through every menu item — including sides, sauces, dressings, and drinks — and list every ingredient, including sub-ingredients. That curry sauce you buy premade? Check the label. The bread rolls from your supplier? Check the label. You need to trace allergens all the way back through the supply chain for every dish you serve. This is the time-consuming part, but you only need to do it once and then update it when recipes or suppliers change.

• Tag every menu item — once you have completed your recipe audit, attach the relevant allergen tags to each item on your online menu. Every dish should clearly show which of the 14 allergens it contains. No exceptions, no "just the popular ones".
• Choose a labelling format and stick with it — you can use text labels ("Contains: milk, eggs, gluten"), small icons beside each dish, or a combination of both. Icons are quick to scan but must include a text key. Text is unambiguous but takes more space. Whatever you choose, use the same format across your entire menu.
• Handle "may contain" properly — "contains" means the allergen is an ingredient. "May contain" (or "made in a kitchen that also handles") refers to the risk of cross-contamination during preparation. These are different and both matter. If you fry your chips in the same oil as your battered fish, those chips "may contain" fish. Be honest about cross-contamination risks — it protects your customers and your liability.
• Update when recipes change — swapped to a different brand of soy sauce? Changed a supplier? Added a new ingredient to a dish? Your allergen information needs updating immediately. Build this into your process: every recipe or supplier change triggers an allergen review. It takes five minutes and prevents a potentially life-threatening mistake.
• Train your staff — everyone who takes orders, prepares food, or handles customer queries needs to understand allergens. They should know where to find the allergen information, how to answer customer questions confidently, and what to do if they are unsure (the answer is always: check, never guess). Allergen training records are something environmental health officers look for during inspections.

Keep a master allergen matrix — a spreadsheet or document that lists every menu item against all 14 allergens. This becomes your single source of truth. When your online menu, printed menu, and staff training all reference the same document, consistency follows naturally.

Most food businesses treat allergen declarations as a box to tick — an annoying legal obligation that sits alongside fire safety training and HACCP documentation. But the businesses that treat allergen transparency as a feature rather than a chore unlock genuine competitive advantages.

Consider this: roughly 2 million people in the UK live with a diagnosed food allergy, and around 2 in 100 adults have coeliac disease. Add in those who manage intolerances, dietary preferences, or who order on behalf of family members with allergies, and you are looking at a significant portion of your potential customer base who actively seek out businesses they can trust. When someone with a serious allergy finds a restaurant that displays allergen information clearly and accurately, they tend to become fiercely loyal repeat customers — and they tell others.

• Allergen info builds trust — when customers can see exactly what is in their food before ordering, they feel confident and in control. That confidence translates directly into orders. A customer who is unsure about allergens at your restaurant will simply order from somewhere they trust instead.
• Customers can self-serve — clear allergen labelling online means customers can filter and choose for themselves without needing to phone your restaurant, send a message, or ask a staff member to check. This is faster for them and saves you time. Every allergen query that is answered automatically on your menu is one fewer phone call during a busy service.
• It reduces your liability — clear, accurate allergen labelling is your best legal protection. If a customer has a reaction and you can demonstrate that the allergen was clearly declared on your menu, on the order confirmation, and on the packaging, your position is far stronger than a business that relied on "they should have asked". Documentation protects you.
• It makes you look professional — a menu with clear allergen tags, consistent labelling, and thoughtful presentation signals that you take food seriously. It is a marker of quality. Businesses that cut corners on allergen information often cut corners elsewhere too — customers sense this, even if they cannot articulate it.
• Filtering as a competitive advantage — an online menu where customers can filter by allergen (show me everything that is nut-free, or dairy-free) is a genuinely useful feature that most competitors do not offer. Instead of scrolling through 40 items reading every label, a customer with a milk allergy can instantly see the 25 items they can safely eat. This turns a regulatory requirement into a selling point.

Getting allergen declarations right is not just about avoiding fines or lawsuits. It is about building a food business that people trust — one where customers with allergies feel safe ordering, where parents feel confident feeding their children, and where the quality of your information matches the quality of your food. That trust compounds over time into repeat orders, word-of-mouth recommendations, and a reputation that sets you apart.