How to manage allergens in hospitality

UK allergen legislation requires all food businesses to declare when any of the following 14 major allergens are present as ingredients: celery, cereals containing gluten, crustaceans, eggs, fish, lupin, milk, molluscs, mustard, nuts, peanuts, sesame seeds, soya and sulphur dioxide. 

For food pre-packed for direct sale - sandwiches, salads, pastries and similar items made and packaged on the same premises, Natasha's Law, which came into force in October 2021, requires full ingredient labelling including allergen emphasis. This applies to any food business in England, Wales and Northern Ireland preparing and selling PPDS food. 

For food sold loose or prepared to order, operators are required to provide allergen information to customers on request - either in writing on the menu or verbally, as long as customers are clearly directed to where the information is available. 

The legal minimum is a starting point, not a standard to aim for. A guest with a severe allergy who receives inaccurate information, or no information at all, faces a potentially life-threatening situation and in the UK alone, over 200,000 people require the prescription of emergency adrenaline due to their allergic condition. 

8 tips for allergen management in your venue 

1. Store and label allergenic ingredients correctly 

The Food Standards Agency’s PAFA study estimates around 6% of UK adults – about 2.4 million people have a clinically confirmed food allergy. Allergenic ingredients should be stored in clearly labelled, sealed containers, kept separate from non-allergenic alternatives and positioned on lower shelves to prevent spillage onto other ingredients. 

Colour-coded containers or shelf labels help staff identify allergenic ingredients quickly, particularly across shifts where not everyone has the same level of familiarity with the stock. The storage system is only as useful as its consistency - one unlabelled container is enough to create a risk. 

2. Use dedicated equipment and preparation areas 

Cross-contamination through shared equipment is one of the most common sources of allergen incidents in busy kitchens. Where volume justifies it, dedicated utensils, cutting boards and a separate fryer for allergen-free preparation significantly reduce that risk and give front-of-house staff something concrete and confident to tell guests who ask. If a dedicated allergen-free fryer is available, make sure every member of the team knows about it. 

3. Implement documented cleaning protocols 

When switching between allergen-containing and allergen-free preparations, a written cleaning checklist removes reliance on individual judgment. It specifies which surfaces, utensils and equipment need cleaning, in what order, and to what standard. It also creates an auditable record, useful both for internal management and in the event of a guest incident.  

Pay particular attention to high-contact shared equipment and the eight highest-risk allergens: peanuts, tree nuts, milk, eggs, fish, shellfish, wheat and soya. 

4. Train kitchen and front-of-house staff together 

Allergen training works best when kitchen and front-of-house staff train together rather than separately. A server who understands how the kitchen manages cross-contamination gives a more credible and accurate answer to a guest with an allergy. A chef who understands what guests are actually asking when they flag an intolerance is better placed to communicate what is and is not possible.  

Cover the 14 major allergens, cross-contamination risks, what adaptations the kitchen can reliably make, and emergency procedures and refresh this training regularly, not just at induction. 

5. Establish clear communication from order to plate 

When a guest flags an allergy (and a YouGov survey reported that 76% of respondents with food allergies or intolerances felt comfortable telling staff about their condition), that information needs to travel accurately from the front-of-house conversation through to the kitchen and stay attached to the order until it is served.  

Whether through a written allergen flag on the ticket, a specific verbal handover protocol or a POS system that carries allergen notes, the process needs to be explicit. The system should also ensure that allergen-free dishes are not handled, garnished or served using the same utensils as standard dishes. 

6. Make allergen information easy to find before guests arrive 

Many allergen-affected guests check menus online before committing to a venue. In an FSA survey, almost 6 in 10 guests with food allergies said they regularly check online menus for allergen information before choosing where and what to eat. 

If your allergen information is hard to find, incomplete or out of date, you may lose that booking before the guest has ever contacted you. Keep your online allergen menu current, ensure it covers starters, mains and desserts rather than just the highest-volume dishes, and use clear visual symbols consistent between your printed menu, your website and any specials board, to help guests navigate independently. 

7. Be clear about what adaptations your kitchen can make 

Some of the most reassuring things you can tell an allergen-affected guest are specific and operational: the chips are cooked in a dedicated fryer, the sauce can be served on the side, the dish can be made without the dressing. If your kitchen can make these adaptations reliably, make that visible: on the menu, in staff training, in how servers respond to allergen questions.  

For large group bookings, collect dietary requirements at the time of booking so the kitchen has time to prepare properly rather than responding to last-minute requests at service. 

8. Know your emergency procedures and rehearse them 

Every member of staff should know how to recognise an allergic reaction, what the immediate response is, whether the venue holds an epinephrine autoinjector, and when to call for emergency medical help. This is not a topic that can be covered once at induction and considered done. Reactions can escalate quickly, and a team that has rehearsed the response is significantly better placed to manage one than a team that has only read about it. 

How Procure Wizard Evo Recipes manages allergen data across your operation 

The most common source of allergen data errors in hospitality is not negligence, but it is lag. It could be that your supplier reformulated a product or that you had to substitute an ingredient or even modify your recipe. Each of these events has the potential to change the allergen profile of one or more dishes.  

If allergen data is maintained manually: in spreadsheets, printed spec sheets or a recipe system that does not connect to live supplier data, those changes require someone to notice them, update the relevant records and propagate the update to every dish affected. In a busy operation, that process is slow and it is prone to gaps. 

Procure Wizard Evo Recipes manages allergen data at ingredient level within the product catalogue. Every ingredient in the catalogue carries its allergen profile, and that profile flows automatically through to every recipe that uses it. When a recipe changes, the allergen matrix updates.  

Feeds: alerts when allergen data changes 

Feeds is the real-time notification layer within the Access Evo AI-workspace. When a supplier updates a product specification in a way that affects its allergen profile: a reformulation, a new declaration, a change to manufacturing conditions, Feeds surfaces that change as an alert, flagging which ingredients are affected and which recipes need review. The alert reaches the relevant team member without anyone needing to monitor supplier communications manually or run a periodic audit of the product catalogue. 

This matters because allergen changes in the supply chain are not always announced prominently. A change to a supplier's production line that introduces a new cross-contamination risk may appear in small print on an updated spec sheet that nobody reads until it is too late. Feeds makes those changes visible as they happen, in the same workspace where purchasing and menu decisions are made. 

Copilot: natural-language allergen queries 

Copilot is the AI assistant within the Access Evo workspace. For allergen management, it enables managers and front-of-house team to query the allergen matrix using plain language rather than navigating reports or filtering spreadsheets. A manager preparing for a large booking with a gluten-free guest can ask Copilot which dishes on tonight's menu are free from cereals containing gluten and receive an immediate, current answer drawn from the live recipe data, including any dishes that can be adapted.  

This removes a layer of friction that, in many operations, results in staff giving uncertain or approximate answers to guest allergen queries. When the allergen data is accurate, current and accessible through a natural-language query, the quality of the answer a guest receives improves and the risk of a serious error reduces. 

Ready to take control of allergen management in your venue? 

Allergen management in hospitality is both a legal requirement and an operational discipline. The kitchen and guest-facing tips in this article give you a practical framework for both.  

Procure Wizard Evo Recipes adds the data infrastructure: allergen information stored at ingredient level in the product catalogue, Feeds alerts when supplier specifications change, and Copilot for instant, accurate allergen queries at the point of decision. 

Book a personalised demo to explore this feature or chat with our friendly team and learn more about how our procurement software can help you stay effortlessly compliant.