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Written by: Localyn · Published: September 2026 · Last reviewed: 22 October 2026

Natasha's Law and allergen rules for small food businesses

Since 1 October 2021, food that you pack on your own premises before the customer chooses it must carry a full ingredients label with the allergens emphasised. That change is widely called Natasha's Law. It did not replace the duty to give allergen information for everything else you sell. This guide explains which foods are covered, what the label must show, and how a small team keeps the information true on a Tuesday when the recipe changes.

What Natasha's Law changed

Natasha's Law is the common name for the Food Information (Amendment) (England) Regulations 2019 and the equivalent rules in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. They amended the food information rules so that prepacked for direct sale (PPDS) food needs the same kind of ingredient labelling as food packed by a different business in a factory. Before October 2021, many PPDS foods could be sold with allergen information given in other ways. That is no longer enough for food that meets the PPDS definition.

The duty sits on top of assimilated Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011, which lists the 14 allergens that must be declared. Natasha's Law did not invent those 14 foods. It changed how PPDS products must present them: in a full ingredients list, emphasised, on the package.

What counts as PPDS food

PPDS food is packed on the same premises from which it is sold, before the customer selects or orders it. The packing can be a bag, box, cling film or a lidded pot, if the food is enclosed and ready for the customer to take in that pack. Typical examples in a small business:

  • Sandwiches, salads and pasta pots made in the morning and placed in a chiller for customers to pick up.
  • Cakes or brownies sliced, bagged and priced on a counter before anyone asks for them.
  • Meals prepared and packed for a grab-and-go shelf, even if you also cook to order.

Food you pack after the customer orders it is not PPDS. A burger boxed at the pass, a pizza in a delivery box, or a sandwich made in front of the customer falls into non-prepacked food. You must still provide allergen information for it, but you do not have to put a full ingredients label on every box. Distance selling has its own rule: allergen information must be available before the customer buys, and at the point of delivery. A website that says "ask us" without a way to get the answer before purchase is not that rule.

Food packed by another business and sold by you unchanged — a wholesale muffin in the manufacturer's wrapper — is ordinary prepacked food. The manufacturer's label should already carry ingredients and emphasised allergens. Your job is not to hide that label or to relabel it wrongly if you decant it.

What a PPDS label must show

  • The name of the food.
  • A full list of ingredients, in descending order by weight as they were used.
  • Any of the 14 regulated allergens emphasised in that list, for example in bold, so they stand out from the other ingredients.

Emphasising the word "milk" in a sentence underneath the pack, without a full ingredients list, does not meet the PPDS labelling duty. Quantitative ingredient declarations and other food information rules can also apply to some products. If you make nutrition or health claims, those have their own rules. This guide stays on allergens and PPDS, which is where small kitchens most often get caught.

The 14 allergens

These must be declared when they are ingredients, whatever the type of food. For PPDS they appear emphasised in the ingredients list. For non-prepacked food they can be given on a menu, a board, or verbally, provided the information is accurate and staff know where to find it. A sign that says "please ask" only works if the person asked can answer.

  • Celery
  • Cereals containing gluten: wheat, rye, barley, oats
  • Crustaceans, for example prawns, crab, lobster
  • Eggs
  • Fish
  • Lupin
  • Milk
  • Molluscs, for example mussels, oysters
  • Mustard
  • Peanuts
  • Sesame
  • Soybeans
  • Sulphur dioxide and sulphites above 10mg/kg or 10mg/litre
  • Tree nuts: almond, hazelnut, walnut, cashew, pecan, Brazil, pistachio, macadamia

"May contain" statements are not a substitute for declaring an ingredient you deliberately use. They are about the risk of unintentional presence. If you use them, they should reflect a real assessment of your kitchen, not a sentence copied onto every product so that you never have to think about cross-contact.

What environmental health officers check

Allergen control is part of food information law and part of how officers judge whether you manage the business. On a visit they often:

  • Pick up a PPDS item and read the label against the recipe.
  • Ask a member of staff, not only the owner, what is in a dish and where the matrix is.
  • Compare today's special with the matrix. A special that is not on it is a finding.
  • Look at preparation: shared boards, fryers, scoops, and cloths between foods that contain an allergen and foods that do not.
  • Ask what happens when a supplier changes a sauce, a spread, or a spice mix.

They are not impressed by a folder that was right in January if the pesto on the prep bench is a different brand. See the inspection checklist for how this sits with the rest of the visit, and the hygiene rating guide for why management evidence matters to the score.

How to keep a matrix true

  1. List every dish and PPDS product you actually sell, including specials and children's items.
  2. Build the allergens from the ingredients, including oils, stocks, garnishes, and the coating on chips if the fryer is shared.
  3. Name one person who may change a recipe, and make updating the matrix and the PPDS label part of that change, before the food is sold.
  4. Keep supplier information for bought-in components. When a delivery note or specification changes, check the allergens before the pack goes into a sandwich.
  5. Train everyone who takes an order or packs a product. Induction is the minimum. A certificate on the wall does not answer a customer.
  6. Write down cross-contact controls: separate boards, dedicated utensils, cleaning between uses, and fryers or grills you cannot separate.

A single allergen matrix tied to the current menu is easier to defend than three spreadsheets and a chalkboard. If you decant or prepack, print the label from that same matrix so the pack and the matrix cannot drift apart.

Worked example

A cafe makes egg mayonnaise sandwiches at 8am, wraps them, and puts them in the customer fridge with a price. That is PPDS. The label names the food and lists the ingredients, with egg, milk (in the spread and the butter), and wheat emphasised because the bread contains wheat. Mustard in the mayonnaise is emphasised too. The matrix says the same thing.

At 11am they run out of their usual mayonnaise. A cook opens a different jar from the dry store. The new jar contains mustard, which the old one did, and also celery, which the old one did not. The sandwiches already on the shelf still match the old label. The new batch must not use the old label. The cafe stops, updates the matrix, reprints the label with celery emphasised, and notes the supplier change in the diary. A sandwich sold with yesterday's label would be a false ingredients list. That is the failure Natasha's Law is aimed at: the customer cannot ask about a sealed pack the way they can ask about a made-to-order baguette.

The same cafe still makes baguettes to order. Those are not PPDS. Staff use the matrix when a customer asks, and a notice tells customers to ask. The grill is shared with a sausage that contains gluten. The matrix says the grilled baguette is not suitable for someone avoiding gluten, because the cafe cannot clean the grill to a standard they are willing to call gluten-free. They do not write "gluten-free" on the board.

Where this comes from

Allergen labelling in this guide follows Food Standards Agency allergen guidance for food businesses, the 14 allergens in assimilated Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011, and the PPDS labelling rules introduced by Natasha's Law from 1 October 2021 in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Recipes, labels and staff answers on the day are what an officer will compare. If a product is unusual — alcohol, loose foods, or a nutrition claim — check the specific FSA guidance before you copy a cafe label onto it.

Frequently asked questions

What is Natasha's Law?

It is the common name for the UK rules, in force from 1 October 2021, that require prepacked for direct sale food to carry a full ingredients list with the 14 regulated allergens emphasised on the label.

Which foods are prepacked for direct sale?

Food packed on the same premises it is sold from, before the customer selects it. Sandwiches wrapped in the morning for a chiller are PPDS. Food packed after the customer orders it is not PPDS, but you must still give allergen information for it.

Do the 14 allergens apply if I do not prepack anything?

Yes. Every food business must be able to tell customers which of the 14 allergens are in the food. PPDS changes the format of that information for food that is packed before it is chosen. It does not remove the duty for made-to-order food.

Is a verbal answer enough?

For non-prepacked food, allergen information can be given verbally if customers are told to ask and staff can give an accurate answer from up-to-date information. A verbal answer is not a substitute for the ingredients label on PPDS food.

What if a supplier changes an ingredient?

Treat it as a recipe change. Check the new specification before the ingredient is used, update the matrix, and reprint PPDS labels. Selling food against an old label is how allergen incidents happen.

Related pages

Takeaway food hygieneHot holding food safelyAllergen matrixHygiene rating checkerTakeawaysAllergen awareness module

Sources

Last reviewed . These links are the pages this guide was checked against. They are not an endorsement of Localyn, and they do not make a kitchen compliant.

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