Allergen awareness
For most customers an allergen question is a preference. For someone with a severe allergy, your answer is a safety decision — a wrong or guessed answer can kill. This module is about never guessing.
The 14 regulated allergens
Celery · cereals containing gluten (wheat, rye, barley, oats) · crustaceans · eggs · fish · lupin · milk · molluscs · mustard · peanuts · sesame · soybeans · sulphur dioxide/sulphites · tree nuts. You do not need to memorise every ingredient of every dish — you need to know where the answer lives: your kitchen's allergen matrix.
When a customer asks
- Never guess, never assume. "I think it's fine" is not an answer.
- Check the allergen matrix, or ask the person responsible — every time, even for regulars, because recipes and suppliers change.
- Tell the kitchen it is an allergy order, not a preference, so it is prepared accordingly.
- If the answer genuinely cannot be established, say so honestly — the customer can choose something else. That is safer than a guess.
Cross-contact — the invisible allergen
A dish with no nut ingredients is not nut-safe if it was cut with the knife that just portioned the baklava, or fried in the oil the breaded scampi uses. For allergy orders: clean surfaces and equipment, fresh gloves or washed hands, and think about shared fryers, water baths and dusting flour. If cross-contact cannot be avoided, the customer must be told.
Labels and PPDS (Natasha's Law)
Food packed before the customer orders it — wrapped sandwiches in the chiller, boxed cakes — must carry a full ingredient label with allergens emphasised. If you make and pack these, the label must match what actually went in today, including any substitutions.
Check your understanding
A regular asks if the soup contains celery. You made it last week and it didn't. Answer now?
Check the matrix or today's recipe anyway — suppliers and recipes change. Answer from the current information, not memory.
The brownie contains no nuts. Is it safe to describe as nut-free?
Only if cross-contact is controlled — shared boards, tins or display cabinets with nut items can make it unsafe. Describe it honestly: "no nut ingredients, prepared where nuts are handled" if that's the truth.
You ran out of the usual mayo and used a different brand in today's prepacked sandwiches. Does it matter?
Yes — the new brand may have different allergens (mustard is common in mayo). The PPDS label and the matrix must reflect what actually went in today.
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.
See it working before you sign up
Walk through a sample store with realistic demo data — no login required — or start a 1-month free trial and set up your first site with Localyn.