How to add allergen info to your menu (EU 1169/2011 guide for restaurants)

If you operate a restaurant, cafe, food truck, or hotel kitchen in the European Union or the European Economic Area, you are generally required to disclose the presence of 14 specific allergens in the food you serve. The same practical expectation also exists in the United Kingdom under its retained and amended food information rules. EU Regulation 1169/2011 has applied since December 13, 2014 and covers non-prepacked food — including restaurant meals — as well as packaged food.

This guide is written for EU/EEA and UK food businesses. If you run a restaurant in the United States or another non-European market, do not treat this as a universal rulebook: local law may use a different allergen list, different disclosure duties, and different enforcement practice.

This is not a "nice to have." Local food-safety authorities can take enforcement action for missing or misleading allergen information, and inaccurate information creates a serious health risk for guests. The operational bar is manageable, but the system has to be accurate and kept up to date.

This guide covers:

• What the regulation requires in practice
• The 14 allergens you must declare in the EU/UK framework
• Common formats for disclosing the information
• How to set this up systematically in a digital menu
• Common failure modes and how to avoid them

What EU 1169/2011 actually says

The regulation is long, but the core restaurant obligation comes from Article 44, which makes the allergen particulars in Article 9(1)(c) mandatory for non-prepacked food. Annex II contains the allergen list. Restated in operator language:

1. Customers need access to allergen information before they order. The information must be easy to find at the decision point, not buried in a back office.
2. The information must be specific and accurate. A generic "may contain traces" statement does not replace disclosure of an allergen that is intentionally present in a dish.
3. Member States can set the exact format. Written, electronic, and verbal routes may be possible depending on local rules, but a defensible setup should always have a written or digital source that staff and guests can rely on.

The UK kept a similar 14-allergen framework after Brexit. It also introduced "Natasha's Law" from October 2021 for prepacked-for-direct-sale food. That PPDS rule is separate from plated restaurant meals, but restaurants, cafes, pubs, hotels, and food trucks still need a reliable way to provide allergen information for loose food.

The 14 allergens you must declare

Annex II of EU 1169/2011 lists 14 substances or products causing allergies or intolerances. You must disclose each whenever it is an intentional ingredient:

1. Cereals containing gluten — wheat, rye, barley, oats, spelt, kamut, and their hybridised strains
2. Crustaceans — shrimp, prawn, crab, lobster, langoustine
3. Eggs
4. Fish
5. Peanuts
6. Soybeans
7. Milk (including lactose)
8. Tree nuts — almonds, hazelnuts, walnuts, cashews, pecans, brazil nuts, pistachios, macadamia
9. Celery
10. Mustard
11. Sesame seeds
12. Sulphur dioxide and sulphites (over 10 mg/kg or 10 mg/L)
13. Lupin
14. Molluscs — clams, mussels, oysters, snails, squid, octopus

The regulatory "tree nuts" category excludes peanuts, which are legumes and have their own entry. It also does not cover coconut. Sesame is its own entry, so do not hide it under a generic "seeds" label. If you use other ingredients that guests may ask about — for example pine nuts — you can disclose them voluntarily, but keep the mandatory 14 separate and precise.

What "providing the information" actually looks like

The EU framework leaves room for national rules, but the usual compliant formats are the following.

Option 1: On the menu itself

Each dish carries a clear, legible allergen indication. This is the strongest self-service option because the guest sees the information at the point of choice.

In practice this is done with either icons, a numeric/letter footnote system, or inline text:

“

Caesar Salad (1, 3, 4, 7) — Romaine lettuce, anchovies, parmesan, egg, croutons

Contains: cereals containing gluten (1), eggs (3), fish (4), milk (7).

Icons are friendlier for customers, but they still need a legend. A pure-icon menu without a clear key leaves too much room for confusion.

Option 2: A separate written document available to customers

A binder, laminated card, or A4 sheet can work if it lists every dish with its allergens and is easy to access before ordering. The weak version is a binder nobody mentions and a menu note that only says "ask staff." At minimum, customers should be clearly signposted to the information, and staff should know where the current source is.

Option 3: Electronic / digital display

A QR-code menu, tablet, or kiosk can surface allergen information per dish. This is usually the easiest format to keep accurate, provided it is accessible before ordering and matches any local requirements for language, availability, and staff backup.

A digital allergen system has three advantages no paper version can match:

• It is searchable. A guest with a peanut allergy can filter out dishes tagged with peanuts instead of scanning the entire menu manually.
• It updates instantly. Swap a supplier and update one ingredient; every affected dish can reflect the change.
• It scales across languages. Translate once, and every guest can see the right language without maintaining parallel allergen sheets.

Qarte's allergen management treats the 14 categories as structured menu data. Every menu item can be tagged from a controlled list, and the public menu can render icons, filters, and a per-item details card.

What inspectors actually check

Exact inspection practice varies by country and local authority, but the recurring weak points are consistent:

1. Information missing entirely. No allergen information on the menu, no separate document, no reliable digital source.
2. Vague "ask staff" wording without a current source. Staff need something accurate to check; memory is not a system.
3. Outdated information. The menu still says no tree nuts in the pesto after the kitchen changed to cashews. This is one of the most dangerous failures because the guest may rely on stale data.
4. Information not available in the expected local language. A restaurant in Germany, France, or Spain should not rely on English-only allergen information for local compliance.
5. Staff unable to verify allergens. Even if your menu is correct, staff need to know the workflow for answering allergen questions.

Building a defensible workflow

To get from "we have a paper menu with peanut icons next to two dishes" to a defensible compliance workflow:

Step 1: Audit your recipes

For every dish on your menu, write down every ingredient. Not "salad dressing" — every component of the salad dressing. This is tedious once and valuable forever.

Step 2: Tag each ingredient against the 14 categories

A spreadsheet works. Columns: ingredient, then one column per allergen (yes/no). Roll up to the dish level.

Step 3: Decide your display format

The simplest path is a digital menu with an allergen filter and a per-dish allergen list. Guests can self-serve the first check. Staff still need a standard operating procedure: "If a guest asks about allergens, verify against the current menu source — never from memory."

Step 4: Document a change-management process

When a recipe changes, the allergen tags must update before the new version of the dish goes out of the kitchen. This is the single biggest operational risk. The discipline must be: ingredient changes are menu-data changes, not only kitchen changes.

A digital menu makes this easier to enforce. The menu version guests see can reflect the latest tagging immediately. Paper menus require reprinting, supplement sheets, or another controlled process to avoid stale information.

Step 5: Train staff and document the training

Inspectors may ask, "How do you know if this dish contains celery?" Your staff need a consistent answer. Acceptable: "I check our current menu source — every dish lists its allergens." Weak answer: "I think the chef would have mentioned it."

Where Qarte fits

We built allergen management because allergen compliance often fails when the workflow is too fragile to maintain. Qarte helps you:

• Maintain the 14 allergen categories as a controlled vocabulary
• Tag each menu item with the relevant allergens
• Show allergen filters on the public menu so guests can narrow options
• Render allergen icons per item with a clear legend
• Export a printable allergen sheet for inspections and staff training
• Update the public menu when an ingredient or recipe changes

Combined with multilingual menus, every guest can see allergen information in their language without you maintaining multiple parallel allergen documents.

A note on cross-contamination

The 14 allergens listed in the regulation are about intentional ingredients. Cross-contamination or cross-contact risk is a separate issue. A precautionary statement such as "may contain traces" can be useful when the risk remains real after normal controls, but it should not be used as a substitute for precise ingredient allergen disclosure.

For a restaurant with shared fryers, shared preparation surfaces, or an open kitchen handling allergens, a clear menu note can set expectations:

“

Our kitchen handles tree nuts, gluten, and other allergens. We cannot guarantee complete absence of trace cross-contact.

Use this kind of statement only if it reflects your actual kitchen setup, and check local guidance if you make "free from" or allergen-free claims.

TL;DR checklist

• [ ] Confirm that the EU/EEA or UK framework applies to your business
• [ ] Tag every dish with the 14 allergen categories
• [ ] Make allergen information available before the customer orders
• [ ] Use a digital menu, a written document, or both — never staff memory alone
• [ ] Provide the information in the expected local language; multiple languages are better
• [ ] Train staff on the workflow for allergen questions
• [ ] When recipes change, update the menu before service
• [ ] Add a cross-contamination note only when it is accurate for your kitchen

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If you want allergen work off your operations checklist, start a free Qarte trial. Import your menu, tag allergens in minutes, and publish a clearer, easier-to-maintain public menu the same day.