Allergy and Intolerance: Guidance for Businesses

The Food Standards Agency has issued Guidance designed to help food businesses including pubs, bars, hotels and restaurants to provide information to customers who need to avoid certain ingredients because of an allergy.

The Guidance includes general advice and information on allergy and intolerance, the food labelling rules and specific voluntary best practice guidance on cross-contamination controls for pre-packed foods and loose foods.

In December, new legislation (the EU Food Information for Consumers Regulation 1169/2011) will be introduced that will require food businesses to provide allergy information on food sold unpackaged in, for example, catering outlets, deli counters, bakeries and sandwich bars. There will also be changes to existing legislation on labelling allergenic ingredients in pre-packed foods.

Mandatory obligations for foodservice businesses include:

• Allergen information should be easily accessible, visible and clearly legible;
• Where it is not practical for this information to be in a written format, businesses should use clear signposting to direct the customer to where this information can be found, such as asking members of staff;
• Allergen information should be made available for the entire dish served, and where food is provided in a buffet format, it should be provided for each item separately; and
• Businesses providing allergen information orally from a member of staff must ensure it is consistent, accurate and verifiable upon challenge. Verification of this information should be provided in written form.

The Guidance also includes details on the scope of each of the 14 allergenic ingredients covered by the new legislation: gluten, crustaceans, eggs, fish, peanuts, soybeans, milk, nuts, celery, mustard, sesame, sulphur dioxide and sulphite, lupin and molluscs.

The Guidance can be found here: 'Food allergen labeling and information (EU Regulation 1169/2011): Technical Guidance'