The 14 EU Allergens: What Restaurants Actually Have to Do

If you serve food anywhere in the EU, you have to tell guests which of the 14 named allergens are in each dish. This has been true since Regulation 1169/2011 took effect in December 2014, and enforcement has tightened steadily since.

The rule itself is short. The confusion is in how it applies to a working kitchen.

The 14

These are the allergens the regulation names. Not "common allergens", not "the ones your guests mention". These fourteen, specifically:

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 seeds
12. Sulphur dioxide and sulphites above 10 mg/kg
13. Lupin
14. Molluscs

Celery, mustard, lupin, and sulphites are the ones kitchens forget. Celery hides in stock. Mustard hides in dressings and mayonnaise. Sulphites are in most wine and a lot of dried fruit. A menu that lists gluten and nuts and stops there is not compliant.

Written or spoken, but always available

The regulation lets you provide allergen information either in writing or verbally. What it does not let you do is make the guest ask twice.

If you go the verbal route, there has to be a visible sign telling guests the information is available and how to get it, and any member of staff they ask must be able to answer accurately. In practice this means every server needs current knowledge of every dish, including tonight's special. That is a training burden most kitchens underestimate.

Written is easier to keep honest. A menu, a folder, a QR code on the table, all fine, as long as it is current.

Where kitchens get caught

The special. Written allergen info covers the printed menu, then the kitchen runs a special that nobody documented. This is the single most common gap.

Recipe drift. A supplier changes, the new stock contains celery, and the allergen sheet still reflects the old one. Allergen data is only as current as your last supplier check.

Sauces and stocks. The dish is "grilled chicken and vegetables" and the allergen list says none. The stock had celery, the marinade had mustard, and the pan was finished with butter.

Staff turnover. Verbal information depends on a person knowing the answer. Someone hired last week probably does not.

Cross-contamination is a separate question

The regulation covers what is in the dish. It does not require you to guarantee a kitchen free of a given allergen, and you should not imply that you can.

Be straight with guests about it. "We use nuts throughout this kitchen and cannot guarantee a nut-free dish" is honest and useful. Silence, or a vague reassurance, is neither. A guest with a serious allergy would rather hear a clear no than an optimistic maybe.

Getting it documented

The work is mostly one careful pass through the menu, dish by dish, ingredient by ingredient, including everything that goes into a stock or a sauce. It is tedious and it is not hard.

What makes it stick is keeping it current: a habit of updating the allergen sheet whenever a recipe or supplier changes, rather than treating it as a compliance task you did once.

Why bother beyond the law

Around 2% of adults and 5% of children in Europe have a food allergy. Add intolerances and the number climbs well past that.

Those guests choose restaurants based on whether they will be safe and whether asking will be awkward. A menu that answers the question before they ask it wins their booking, and usually the bookings of whoever they are dining with. Compliance is the floor. The clear allergen menu is also just good business.