14 allergens
In the UK, food businesses must tell you if they use any of the 14 key allergens as ingredients in the food and drink they provide.
Food businesses include restaurants, cafés and takeaways, and businesses that produce, manufacture or pre-pack food.
The 14 allergens that they need to declare are:
- celery
- cereals containing gluten – including wheat, rye, barley and oats
- crustaceans – such as prawns, crabs and lobsters
- eggs
- fish
- lupin
- milk
- molluscs – such as mussels and oysters
- mustard
- tree nuts – including almonds, hazelnuts, walnuts, brazil nuts, cashews, pecans, pistachios and macadamia nuts
- peanuts
- sesame seeds
- soybeans
- sulphur dioxide and sulphites (if they are at a concentration of more than ten parts per million)
Prepacked food
The 14 allergens must be emphasised within the ingredients list of prepacked food or drink. This can be done, for example, using bold, italic or coloured type, to make the ingredients easier to spot.
Eating out
If you eat out or order a takeaway meal, the food business must provide allergen information in writing. This could be full allergen information on a menu or a written signpost explaining how you can obtain this information, for example by speaking to a member of staff.
You can report businesses that are not meeting the legal requirements and/or illness using our online service.
Vegan food and allergens
When you buy vegan food, you might not expect it to contain any trace amounts of milk, egg, fish, crustaceans and molluscs . However, trace amounts of cross contamination can occur when vegan food is produced in a factory or kitchen that also handles non-vegan food.
This is why packaging for some vegan products sometimes include precautionary allergen labelling such as ‘may contain’. This means the products could include traces of allergens such as milk, eggs, fish, molluscs and crustaceans, which could pose a risk if you have a food allergy to these.
It very important to read the label to see if the product is safe for you, even if it is a ‘vegan’ product. You should also be very clear about your allergy/intolerance when ordering vegan food while eating out, to ensure that the meal is safe for you.
The Food and Drink Federation (FDF) has published the ‘FDF Guidance on ‘Allergen’-Free and Vegan Claims’ (Opens in a new window). This UK guidance has clear information on the difference between ‘allergen’-free claims (e.g. milk-free) and vegan claims.
May contain labelling
Phrases such as ‘may contain’ warn customers that there could be small amounts of an allergen in a food product. This can happen when the allergen has entered the product accidentally during the production process.
There is no specific legal requirement to label food with ‘may contain’. However, food must be safe to eat and information to help people with allergies make safe choices, and manage their condition effectively, must be provided.
Manufacturers can also choose to use different phrases to warn of the risk of allergen cross-contamination such as:
- May contain x
- Not suitable for those with ‘x’ allergy
This is known as precautionary allergen labelling. Where you see precautionary allergen labelling, there is a risk of the unintentional presence of allergen in the food. If you have an allergy, you should not eat food with this labelling.
