Allergen records for small food producers: the 14 allergens and how to keep them straight

The 14 allergens

EU and UK law requires food businesses to declare the presence of these 14 allergens in any food they sell, whether prepacked or sold loose:

1. Cereals containing gluten (wheat, rye, barley, oats, spelt, kamut)
2. Crustaceans
3. Eggs
4. Fish
5. Peanuts
6. Soybeans
7. Milk
8. Nuts (almonds, hazelnuts, walnuts, cashews, pecans, Brazil nuts, pistachios, macadamias)
9. Celery
10. Mustard
11. Sesame
12. Sulphur dioxide and sulphites above 10 mg/kg or 10 mg/litre
13. Lupin
14. Molluscs

For prepacked food the allergens must be emphasised in the ingredients list on the label. For food sold loose or made to order, the information must be available to the customer, in writing or verbally with a sign saying to ask.

Where it goes wrong

• Ingredient substitutions. The usual stock is gone, a different brand goes in, and that brand contains soya or sulphites the original didn't. Nobody updates the recipe.
• Recipe drift. The scone recipe gained an egg wash two years ago; the allergen card didn't.
• Hidden allergens. Worcestershire sauce has fish. Many stocks have celery. Dried fruit often has sulphites. Baking powder can contain wheat starch.
• Cross contact. Not a declaration issue as such, but a nut line sharing a table with a nut free line needs a procedure and often a "may contain" statement.
• Old files. Labels printed from a saved document that nobody has checked since.

A system that stays correct

The fix is to keep allergen information in one place, written down against each product, and to read it from there every time rather than remembering it.

1. Record allergens on each ingredient as it arrives. If a delivery is a different brand, check its label. This is the moment substitutions get caught.
2. Keep an allergen list for each product. Review it whenever a recipe or an ingredient changes.
3. Produce labels and customer information from the recipe record, not from memory or an old file.
4. Keep the link between the batch and the deliveries it used. If a question comes up later ("was there sesame in last Tuesday's batch?"), you can look at exactly which ingredients went in and read their labels.
5. Check the whole list twice a year. Put it in the diary.

When a customer asks

Have the answer written down, and have it be the same answer every member of staff gives. A printed allergen matrix on the counter, generated from your recipes, is the simplest approach for a shop or market stall. For wholesale customers, send the matrix with each new product and whenever a recipe changes, and keep a copy of what you sent.