Phoenix Journal · Food Safety & Compliance
Knowing the fourteen is the easy part. Communicating them clearly, consistently and at the right moment is what actually keeps allergic customers safe.
There are fourteen allergens the law requires you to declare, and the whole challenge is turning that list into something a customer can rely on at the moment they order. Knowing the fourteen is the easy part. Communicating them clearly, consistently and at the right moment is what actually keeps people safe.
UK law recognises fourteen allergens that must be identified wherever they are present: celery, cereals containing gluten, crustaceans, eggs, fish, lupin, milk, molluscs, mustard, tree nuts, peanuts, sesame, soya and sulphur dioxide, also called sulphites. Peanuts and tree nuts are listed separately because they are botanically different and someone can react to one and not the other. Cereals containing gluten covers wheat, rye, barley and oats. The list has legal weight: on prepacked-for-direct-sale food these allergens must be emphasised within the full ingredients list, and for loose and made-to-order food the information must still be given accurately whenever a customer asks.
Clear communication starts with knowing your own dishes, and the allergens that catch people out are rarely the obvious ones. Sulphites sit in wine, dried fruit and some processed potato. Soya runs through sauces, oils and countless processed ingredients. Mustard hides in dressings, mayonnaise and spice blends. Celery turns up in stocks, gravies and soups. Milk appears where you would not expect it, in glazes and flavourings. Gluten is in far more than bread, from soy sauce to thickened sauces. Lupin flour appears in some baked goods, and sesame turns up as seeds, oil and paste in more dishes than most kitchens expect. The only reliable way to communicate this is to build an allergen matrix that maps every dish against all fourteen, taken from the actual recipes rather than memory, and to keep it current whenever an ingredient or supplier changes. A matrix that is wrong is more dangerous than no matrix at all, because it is trusted. This is the same discipline that underpins allergen management that works in a real kitchen.
Communication has two channels, and both matter. In writing, the rules depend on how the food is sold: prepacked-for-direct-sale food carries a full label with the allergens emphasised, as required under Natasha's Law, while for loose and made-to-order food you can point customers to a clearly signposted allergen menu, chart or folder. Since 2025 the FSA has encouraged the out-of-home sector to provide that information in writing as a matter of course, so a written source that customers can see is fast becoming the expected standard rather than a nicety. Spoken communication then backs it up: staff should invite the conversation, direct customers to the written information, and never guess. The strongest signal a business can send is that allergens are taken seriously enough to have a clear, unprompted answer ready, not a shrug and a hunt through the kitchen.
The moment that matters most is the point of order, when a customer says they have an allergy. What should follow is a short, calm routine that any member of the team can run: acknowledge it, check the written source rather than recall from memory, confirm what the dish contains, pass the flag to the kitchen so cross-contact is controlled during prep, and confirm back to the customer before the food is served. Getting this right at service speed takes practice, which is why it cannot rest on one trained person who might be off that shift. When the whole team shares the routine, allergen orders stop being a moment of anxiety and become just another thing the kitchen handles well.
The goal is not an elegant system; it is an unmistakable one. Emphasise allergens so they stand out, keep the written source in one place everyone can find, and make sure every member of staff can point to it and read from it under pressure. Be honest with precautionary "may contain" wording: use it only where a genuine cross-contact risk has been assessed, because when it is scattered across everything it stops meaning anything and allergic customers learn to ignore it. And keep the message consistent across the menu, the label, the website and what staff say at the counter, because a customer who gets three different answers has no safe way to choose. Communicated well, the fourteen allergens stop being a compliance headache and become a quiet mark of a business that can be trusted with the people it feeds, whatever they can and cannot eat.
Questions
Celery, cereals containing gluten, crustaceans, eggs, fish, lupin, milk, molluscs, mustard, tree nuts, peanuts, sesame, soya and sulphur dioxide (sulphites). Peanuts and tree nuts are listed separately, and cereals containing gluten covers wheat, rye, barley and oats.
Accurately, and both in writing and verbally. You can use a signposted allergen chart, menu or folder, and staff should direct customers to it and confirm details. Since 2025 the FSA encourages providing written allergen information for non-prepacked food as standard.
For prepacked-for-direct-sale food, you need a full ingredients list with the 14 allergens emphasised within it. For loose and made-to-order food, you must be able to give accurate allergen information on request, which a full ingredient breakdown makes far easier.
Only where a genuine cross-contamination risk has been identified through a risk assessment. Applied honestly it is useful; applied to everything as a blanket disclaimer it becomes meaningless, and allergic customers stop trusting it.
Because they are botanically different. Peanuts are legumes, while tree nuts such as almonds, hazelnuts and walnuts are a separate group. Someone can be allergic to one and not the other, so the law requires them to be declared separately rather than lumped together as 'nuts'.
Phoenix Duct Clean · by the numbers
Controlling cross-contact is what lets you stand behind what you tell customers. Ask us about a commercial kitchen deep clean that supports your allergen controls.