Allergen rules for takeaways: what UK law asks of you

For a customer with a food allergy, the information you give about a dish decides whether it is safe to eat. The law gives takeaways a clear set of duties: tell customers if a dish contains any of 14 allergens, make that information available before they order and when the food arrives, and fully label any food you pack before it is ordered.

This guide follows the Food Standards Agency (FSA) guidance for England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and Food Standards Scotland (FSS) guidance for Scotland. Your council's environmental health team enforces the rules and can answer questions about your own shop.

The 14 allergens

The FSA's allergen guidance for food businesses (opens in a new tab) says businesses must declare these 14 allergens when they are used as ingredients:

• Celery
• Cereals containing gluten, such as wheat, rye, barley and oats
• Crustaceans, such as prawns, crabs and lobsters
• Eggs
• Fish
• Lupin
• Milk
• Molluscs, such as mussels and oysters
• Mustard
• Peanuts
• Sesame
• Soybeans
• Sulphur dioxide and sulphites, at a concentration of more than ten parts per million
• Tree nuts, such as almonds, hazelnuts, walnuts, brazil nuts, cashews, pecans, pistachios and macadamia nuts

The rules also cover additives, processing aids and other substances that end up in the final dish. So if a sauce, marinade or spice mix you buy in contains mustard or sesame, every dish you use it in contains it too. The FSA advises recording allergen ingredients on product specification sheets, recipes or ingredient labels, and keeping those records up to date whenever a supplier or recipe changes.

Food you make in the shop

Food you cook and serve to order counts as non-prepacked, or loose, food. The FSA says you can give allergen information in writing, for example on a menu or chalkboard, or verbally. If you give it verbally, you must back it up with a written notice placed in a clearly visible position, telling customers they can ask staff about allergens. The FSA says written information supported by a conversation works best for customers.

The FSA's best practice guidance on allergen information for non-prepacked food, published in February 2025 for England, Wales and Northern Ireland, goes further. It is not a legal requirement, but it recommends:

• Making written allergen information readily available, if possible without customers having to ask for it.
• Backing it up with a conversation, and training staff to talk to customers about their allergy needs.
• If you use allergen symbols, including the allergen name or a key that explains each symbol in words.

Online and phone orders

When a customer orders online, through an app or by phone, the law treats it as distance selling. The FSA's guidance says allergen information must be available at two points:

1. Before the purchase is completed, for example on your online menu or from staff on the phone.
2. When the food is delivered, for example through allergen stickers on the food or an enclosed copy of the menu.

Food Standards Scotland's technical guidance, written for Scotland, gives practical examples. At the time of order, you can point customers to written allergen information such as an online menu, or have staff read from the written information on the phone. It suggests asking customers whether they need allergen information before taking the order. At delivery, you can put a sticker on each container naming the dish and its allergens, send a menu or allergen chart with the order with clear names on each container, or have the delivery driver hand over written information that clearly links to each item.

The same duty applies however the order arrives, so check the allergen information on each delivery app menu matches your current recipes, and update it at the same time as your own menu.

If you use ChefSynk on the Growth or Complete plan, the kitchen display highlights modifiers on each ticket, and the dispatch display adds allergen prompts to the bag check-list before an order goes out.

Natasha's Law: food packed before it is ordered

Since 1 October 2021, food that is prepacked for direct sale (PPDS) has needed a full label across the UK. These rules are also known as Natasha's Law. The label must show:

• The name of the food.
• A full ingredients list.
• Any of the 14 allergens emphasised within that list, using bold type, capital letters, contrasting colours or underlining.

PPDS food is food packaged at the same place it is sold, before the customer orders or selects it. The FSA's guidance for restaurants, cafés and pubs lists examples such as prepacked sandwiches, salad boxes, pies in packaging and soup in pots, and says drinks poured and lidded before ordering, in anticipation of a rush, are PPDS too.

Most takeaway food is not PPDS. The FSA says food made to order, and food placed into packaging at the customer's request, is not PPDS. So a dish you cook and box after the customer orders falls under the loose food rules above. Anything you pack in advance and put out for customers to pick up does need the full label.

The PPDS labelling rules do not apply to food sold by distance selling. If you sell PPDS food online or by phone, the allergen information must still be available before the customer orders and when the food is delivered.

Cross-contact and allergen-free claims

The FSA's guidance on avoiding cross-contamination includes cleaning utensils before each use, especially after handling allergens, and washing hands between preparing dishes with and without certain allergens. If you cannot avoid cross-contamination, you should tell customers that you cannot provide an allergen-free dish.

Be careful with 'free-from' claims. The FSA says they need strict control of ingredients and preparation. It also notes that vegan dishes may still contain low-level traces of animal-based allergens, so be clear with customers about that risk.

Training your staff

The FSA says food businesses must make sure staff receive training on allergens. It offers free online allergy training (opens in a new tab), and Food Standards Scotland runs its own free online allergen training courses. Whoever answers the phone or packs the bags on a busy night needs to know where the allergen information is and what to do when a customer asks.

How Scotland differs

The core legal duties are the same in Scotland: the same 14 allergens, information for loose food in writing or verbally with a visible written notice, information before purchase and at delivery for distance sales, and full PPDS labels since 1 October 2021. The differences are mostly in who regulates and which guidance applies:

• Food Standards Scotland, not the FSA, is the regulator, and council environmental health departments enforce the rules.
• FSS publishes its own Food Allergen Labelling and Information Requirements Technical Guidance (May 2023), which applies to Scotland.
• The FSA's 2025 best practice guidance on non-prepacked food applies to England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and does not cover Scotland.
• FSS offers MenuCal, a free tool for recipes, allergen management and calorie information.

What happens if you get it wrong

Local authorities enforce the allergen rules. The FSA says that if a business ignores advice, it may be issued with an improvement notice, which it has 14 days to appeal. Far more important is the risk to your customers, so treat every allergen question as a safety question.

Sources

• FSA, Allergen guidance for food businesses (opens in a new tab) (checked 12 November 2026)
• FSA, Allergen information for non-prepacked foods best practice (opens in a new tab) (checked 12 November 2026)
• FSA, PPDS allergen labelling changes for restaurants, cafés and pubs (opens in a new tab) (checked 12 November 2026)
• FSA, Starting a food business (free allergy training link) (opens in a new tab) (checked 12 November 2026)
• FSA, free online allergy training (opens in a new tab) (checked 12 November 2026)
• FSS, Managing allergens (opens in a new tab) (checked 12 November 2026)
• FSS, Allergen labelling (opens in a new tab) (checked 12 November 2026)
• FSS, Prepacked for direct sale (opens in a new tab) (checked 12 November 2026)
• FSS, Food Allergen Labelling and Information Requirements Technical Guidance (May 2023) (opens in a new tab) (checked 12 November 2026)
• FSS, Starting a food business checklist (MenuCal) (opens in a new tab) (checked 12 November 2026)