Allergen awareness

For most customers a question about ingredients is a preference. For someone with a food allergy it is a safety decision. A guessed answer, a memory from last week, or a dish that picked up another food on the way to the pass can put that person in hospital. This module is the habit you use on a busy shift: find the real answer, tell the kitchen it is an allergy, and say so plainly when you cannot be sure.

What you are being asked to do

UK food businesses have to tell customers if a dish contains any of the 14 regulated allergens. That duty comes from the food information rules, and the Food Standards Agency explains it for both loose food and food you pack yourself. Safer Food, Better Business treats allergens as a safe method: know what is in the food you sell, and have a way of telling the customer that matches what left the kitchen today.

Your job is not to memorise every recipe. Your job is to know where the answer lives in this kitchen, to use it every time, and to stop the plate if the answer and the food do not match. Front of house, the pass, and the person wrapping sandwiches all share that job. A certificate on the wall does not answer the customer. You do.

This page trains those habits. It does not replace your own allergen matrix, your recipes, or anything stricter your manager or local authority has written down. If your pack is tighter than the general rule, follow the pack. Businesses in Scotland should also follow Food Standards Scotland, which publishes its own allergen guidance alongside the same 14 foods.

The 14 allergens, as they show up on a pass

You do not need a chemistry lesson. You need to recognise the foods that hide these ingredients when someone is waiting at the counter. The list below is the legal 14. If a customer names something that is not on it, you still take them seriously and check. Pine nuts and coconut are not in the legal tree-nut list, and some people still react to them. Ask what they need to avoid, then look it up. Do not argue about the list.

Cereals that contain gluten

Wheat, rye, barley, oats, spelt and khorasan wheat (sometimes sold as Kamut). This is not only bread and pasta. It is the flour on a board, the batter on onion rings, soy sauce in a marinade, stock cubes, sausages, gravy granules, couscous, and the crouton that "just finishes" a soup. Oats are in the list even though some people with coeliac disease tolerate a particular oat product. You do not decide that for them. If oats went in, you say oats.

A gluten-free claim is a stronger promise than "we did not add flour". Shared fryers, flour in the air, and a toaster used for ordinary bread can all carry gluten. Only use the words gluten-free if your kitchen has a written method for that dish and you have followed it for this plate. Otherwise describe what you actually did.

Crustaceans, molluscs and fish

Crustaceans include prawns, crab, lobster and crayfish. Molluscs include mussels, oysters, squid, cockles and snails. Fish is its own allergen, so a fish-free dish is not automatically shellfish-free, and the other way round. Watch for prawn crackers, fish sauce in a "vegetarian" stir-fry that is not vegetarian, Worcestershire sauce, oyster sauce, and the oil in a fryer that has been cooking scampi or calamari all day.

Eggs and milk

Eggs are in mayonnaise, fresh pasta, egg-wash on pastry, some burger buns, quiche, mousse, and the batter you think of as "just flour". Milk means the milk of animals: cow, sheep, goat and buffalo. It includes butter, cream, yoghurt, cheese, ghee, and many chocolate and mashed-potato mixes. A dairy-free request is a milk-allergen request unless the customer tells you otherwise. Oat, soya and almond drinks are not milk, but they bring oats, soya or nuts instead. Swapping "dairy" for almond milk is not a favour if the customer also avoids nuts.

Peanuts, tree nuts and sesame

Peanuts are not tree nuts. They are a separate allergen. A customer who says "nuts" may mean peanuts, tree nuts, or both. Ask. Tree nuts named in the rules are almond, hazelnut, walnut, cashew, pecan, Brazil nut, pistachio and macadamia. They turn up in pesto, satay, baklava, praline, marzipan, salad toppings, and some vegetarian burgers and pastry glazes.

Sesame is easy to miss because it is a seed, not a nut: burger buns, tahini, hummus, some breads, and a sprinkle on a salad. "No nuts" does not mean no sesame. If the customer named sesame, or said seeds, check the bread as carefully as the filling.

Soya, lupin, celery, mustard and sulphites

Soya is in soy sauce, tofu, miso, edamame, many vegetarian products, and some chocolate and bread. Lupin is a flour and a seed used in some pastries, breads and battered foods, more often in imported bakery than in a typical British cafe mix, which is exactly why it gets forgotten until a supplier changes.

Celery includes celeriac, celery salt and celery seeds. It sits in soups, stocks, stews and many ready-made sauces. Mustard is in mayonnaise, salad cream, sausages, curry pastes and cheese sauces. Sulphur dioxide and sulphites have to be declared when they are above 10mg per kilogram or 10mg per litre. You will meet them in wine, some dried fruit, processed potatoes, and some burgers and sausages. You are not expected to calculate milligrams on the pass. You are expected to read the product label and the matrix, where the business has already done that.

Where the answer lives

Every kitchen needs one current place that says what is in each dish. In most small cafes, pubs and takeaways that place is an allergen matrix: a chart of dishes against the 14 allergens, filled in from the recipes and the labels of bought-in products. It might be a folder, a board the team can read, or a sheet clipped by the till. Safer Food, Better Business expects you to be able to produce that information when a customer asks. A sign that says "please ask staff" is only lawful for loose food if the staff who are asked can answer accurately.

Use the matrix for the food you are actually selling now. Monday's sheet is wrong if Thursday's delivery changed the mayonnaise. The specials whiteboard is wrong if the chef plated something else. When two sources disagree, the dish waits. Ask the person who made it. If they are not sure either, you tell the customer you cannot confirm it. That sentence is a correct answer. "It should be fine" is not.

Loose food and food cooked to order. Allergen information can be written on a menu or matrix, or given by a member of staff. It has to be accurate, and you have to be able to check it. Logos and icons on their own are not enough.
Food packed by another business. The ingredients are on their label. Read that label, including any "may contain" line, rather than guessing from the picture.
Food you pack before the customer chooses it. Sandwiches in the chiller, boxed cakes, wrapped cookies and lidded pots made on site are prepacked for direct sale. They need their own label. That is Natasha's Law, covered below.
Phone and online orders. The customer needs the allergen information before they finish buying, and again when the food arrives. "We'll tell them at the door if they ask" is too late.

When a customer asks

Stop what you are doing and treat the question as the start of an order, not as chat. The useful sequence is short enough to use when there is a queue.

Find out what they need to avoid. "Nuts" and "dairy" are everyday words. Ask which nuts, and whether dairy means milk. Write it down if the ticket is going to the kitchen. Do not rely on remembering it through a rush.
Look it up. Matrix, recipe or product label. Every time, including for regulars. Recipes and suppliers change. Last week's safe soup is not evidence about today's soup.
If you cannot see it, fetch someone who can. Do not shout a guess across the pass. Do not ask a new starter who has not seen the matrix.
Tell the kitchen it is an allergy, not a preference. Name the allergen and the dish. "No cheese" on a ticket can be read as a dislike. "ALLERGY: milk" cannot.
Say what you did, and what you did not do. "The recipe has no milk. We will cook it in a clean pan" is a real answer. "It's gluten-free" is a claim. Only make the claim if that is what your method allows.
If the answer cannot be established, say that. The customer can choose another dish or leave. That is safer than a confident mistake.

Allergy, intolerance and dislike get the same lookup. A coeliac customer, a person with a milk allergy, and a person who feels ill after onions all deserve an honest ingredients answer. You do not rank how allergic someone "looks". You also do not refuse to check because they said intolerance rather than allergy. The matrix does not care which word they used.

Cross-contact on this shift

A recipe with no nut ingredients is not a nut-safe plate if the knife just portioned baklava, the board still has almond dust, or the cake sits in a cabinet under a walnut slice. That transfer is cross-contact. Customers sometimes call it cross-contamination. In this kitchen it means an allergen moving onto food that was not supposed to contain it.

The physical separation of raw and ready-to-eat food is a different hazard, covered in the cross-contamination module. Allergen cross-contact can happen between two ready-to-eat foods. Both habits matter, and they are not the same conversation.

Shared fryers and water. Batter, breaded fish, scampi, onion bhajis and sesame-coated food leave gluten, fish, crustaceans or sesame in the oil. If you cannot use a separate fryer, you tell the customer. You do not call the chips gluten-free.
Flour and garnishes. Flour hangs in the air and settles on ready-to-eat food. Pesto, hummus, seed mixes and chopped nuts on the pass contaminate spoons and the next plate.
Boards, knives, gloves and cloths. An allergy order needs a clean surface, clean utensils and clean hands or fresh gloves. A wipe with the cloth that just did the previous plate is not a clean. The cleaning module is the two-stage method you use.
Picking it off. Taking croutons, nuts or a breadcrust off a plated dish does not remove the allergen. The dish is remade, or it is not served to that customer.
If you cannot prevent contact. Say so before they order. A precise warning ("cooked in the same fryer as breaded food") is useful. A blanket "everything may contain everything" is not an answer to "is there milk in the soup", and it is not a substitute for looking at the recipe.

Labels on food you packed yourself

From 1 October 2021, food packed on the same premises before the customer selects it must carry the name of the food and a full ingredients list, with the allergens emphasised in that list. People call this Natasha's Law. It applies to the wrap in the grab-and-go fridge, the boxed salad, and the cake slice under film, if you packed them before the customer chose. The Food Standards Agency's PPDS guidance is written for restaurants, cafes and pubs. Handwritten labels are allowed if they are readable and include the full ingredients, not a sticker that only says "gluten".

The label has to match what went in today. A different mayonnaise, a different bread, a splash of the other gravy, or a chocolate that carries a milk warning means a new label. Yesterday's printed stack is not close enough. If you are the person wrapping, you do not wrap first and hope someone else updates the folder. If you are the person serving, you do not sell a pack whose label you cannot vouch for. Take it off sale and tell the manager.

Food the customer watches you pack after they have ordered is not the same category. Allergen information for that plate can be given in the conversation, as long as it is correct. Do not mix the two up during a rush and send a prepacked sandwich out with no label because "they asked at the till".

Substitutions, specials and running out

The dangerous moment is not the quiet hour when the matrix was written. It is 1pm, when the usual bun has run out, the chef has used the other sausages, and someone has written a special on the board from memory. Any swap of bread, sauce, oil, stock, dessert or garnish can change the allergens. The person who made the swap tells the person on the till before the next order, and the matrix or the specials note changes before the food is sold.

Bought-in products change too. A new brand of gravy, a catering-size dessert, or a loaf from a different bakery can add milk, soya, sesame or mustard that the old one did not have. Check the label when the delivery is put away, not when a customer is already eating. If the label is missing, the product waits. You do not "assume it's the same recipe".

If an allergen order goes wrong

Tell the manager straight away. If the customer still has the food, tell them clearly what was in it or what it touched. Do not wait to see if they react. Do not scrape the plate and send a corrected version of the same food. Keep the dish so someone can see what was served. Write down the dish, the allergen, what you think happened, and what you did next. That note is for the diary or incident record your business uses. It is also how the next shift avoids repeating it.

Do not discuss the customer's medical details across the pass or on social media. Do not blame them for "not asking loudly enough" if your menu invited them to ask and then nobody could answer.

Worked example

It is 11:40 on a Saturday at a neighbourhood cafe. A parent orders the tomato pasta special "the one you did without dairy last time" and a side of garlic bread. Their child needs to avoid milk and sesame. The server remembers the special as dairy-free. The printed matrix, dated Monday, still says the tomato pasta has no milk. The specials whiteboard, written at 10:15, says "cream" because the oat drink ran out. This week's focaccia, used for the garlic bread, has sesame on the crust. Last week's was plain. The garlic butter contains milk.

The wrong move is to say "yes, same as last time" and send the ticket as a normal pasta and garlic bread. The right move takes a minute and changes the order.

The server reads the matrix and the whiteboard, sees they disagree, and does not sell the special.
The chef confirms today's special was finished with double cream. The main-menu tomato penne has no milk in the recipe, but it has been cooked in the same pan as the creamy batch. A milk-allergy portion needs a clean pan, clean utensils and a clean pair of hands.
The server tells the parent that in those words. The garlic bread is refused: butter, and sesame on the crust. A jacket potato is offered only after the matrix shows the beans and the spread that would go on it.
The ticket is written "ALLERGY milk and sesame — clean pan — no garlic bread". The kitchen calls back when it is plated. It is not left under the heat lamps next to the creamy pasta.

While that is happening, the server notices yesterday's brownie labels on today's wrapped brownies. The chocolate used this morning lists milk in a "may contain" line that yesterday's bar did not. Those packs come off the counter until someone writes today's ingredients. Selling them with Friday's label would break the PPDS rules even if nobody with an allergy had asked yet.

Nobody has memorised the whole menu. They have refused to let an old sheet, an old label, or a busy queue outrank what went into the food this morning.

What a manager or environmental health officer checks

An officer can ask any person serving or cooking, not only the owner. They are checking whether the safe method works on this shift. Expect questions in ordinary language, then a look at the actual food.

Can you find the allergen information without phoning the manager at home?
Does that information match today's specials, today's bread, and the labels on opened sauces?
What do you say if you do not know? They are listening for "I will check" and "I can't confirm that", not for a confident guess.
Show me a prepacked sandwich or cake from the fridge. Does the label name the food and list the ingredients, with allergens emphasised? Does it match what is inside?
How would you make an allergy order in this kitchen? They will look at whether a clean board, pan and utensils are actually available in the space you have.
What changed the last time a product was substituted? If nobody can describe a change, they may pick a jar and compare it with the matrix themselves.

Managers should be able to show that staff who answer customers have been told where the matrix is and what to do when it is wrong. A signed sheet from a course nobody remembers is weaker than a cook who can walk through the Saturday example above. The officer may also look at the diary for an allergen mistake and whether the business changed anything afterwards.

Most small kitchens are inspected against the allergen safe method in Safer Food, Better Business. Your matrix and your answers should line up with the pages filled in for this menu, not with a blank pack still in the envelope.

Check your understanding

A regular asks if the soup contains celery. You made it last week and it did not. What do you say?

You do not answer from last week. Check today's matrix or ask the person who made this batch. Stocks, a new soup base, or a handful of celeriac can add celery without the soup looking different. If today's information says celery, you say yes. If it says no, you say no and you can explain that you have just checked. If the sheet and the chef disagree, you do not sell it until they agree.

The brownie recipe has no nuts. Can you call it nut-free?

Only if this kitchen actually controls nuts for that product and your manager has agreed the wording. A recipe with no nuts can still pick up almond from a shared board, a slicer, a display cabinet or a garnish tub. The honest sentence is often "no nuts in the recipe, made in a kitchen that uses nuts". If you cannot prevent that contact and the customer needs a nut-free product, do not sell it to them as one.

You ran out of the usual mayonnaise and used another brand in today's prepacked sandwiches. Does the label change?

Yes. Mayonnaise often contains egg and mustard, and some brands add other allergens. The ingredients list on a prepacked sandwich has to match what is inside that pack. Reprint or rewrite the label before the sandwich goes back on sale. Update the matrix as well, or the next person will read the old brand and give the old answer.

A customer says they are gluten-free and orders the chips. The chips are unbattered but fried in the same oil as the battered fish. What do you tell them?

You tell them the oil is shared with battered food, so you cannot call the chips gluten-free. If they still want them after that warning, that is their decision, and you have not dressed it up. If your kitchen has a separate fryer that has not had gluten in it, say that only if it is true of the fryer you will actually use for this portion.

Someone asks for the burger "without cheese" because they hate cheese. Do you mark it as an allergy?

Ask. If it is a dislike, the kitchen still needs to leave the cheese off, but it is not an allergy ticket. If they are avoiding milk, write it as an allergy so the bun, the sauce and the grill are checked, not only the slice of cheese. Plenty of milk allergy orders are first described as "no cheese". The question takes a few seconds and prevents the wrong kind of ticket.

The menu says "please speak to staff about allergens", and you are new. A customer is waiting. What is acceptable?

Fetch a colleague who can use the matrix, or open the matrix and read it with them. It is not acceptable to invent an answer so the queue moves, or to say "everything may contain traces" when they asked about one dish. If nobody on shift can read the matrix, tell the customer you cannot give a reliable answer and get the manager. Then stop selling dishes you cannot describe.

A takeaway order placed by phone is already at the door. The driver asks you to "just mention the nuts if they ask". Is that enough?

No. For food ordered by phone or online, allergen information has to be available before the purchase is completed, and it has to be available when the food is delivered. Hoping the customer asks on the doorstep does not meet that. If the order was taken without the information, tell the manager before it is handed over.

You spot a peanut garnish on a salad that the matrix lists as peanut-free, after the customer has started eating. What do you do?

Stop the meal. Tell the customer, plainly, that the salad has peanuts and that this does not match what you told them. Fetch the manager. Do not wait to see if they become ill, and do not remove the nuts and offer the same salad back. Keep the plate, write down what happened, and check every other salad still on the pass before service continues.

Doing this as part of your job?

If your workplace uses Localyn, ask your manager for your personal training link — completing modules through it records the training in the store's food safety evidence automatically. Managers: issue links from the Training page in your dashboard.

Natasha's Law allergen rules Allergen matrix Takeaways

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