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Allergen questions are the highest-stakes conversation at the counter. UK law names 14 allergens you must be able to answer for, and since Natasha's Law, food you package on the premises before customers order or select it needs a full ingredient label. Here's the whole picture, and how a matrix keeps it manageable.
Sources checked 2026-07-16 · your local authority always has the final say.
UK allergens · the essentials
PPDS = prepacked for direct sale (Natasha's Law). Information must be accurate, accessible and kept up to date.
UK food information law names 14 allergens every food business must be able to identify in anything it serves: celery, cereals containing gluten, crustaceans, eggs, fish, lupin, milk, molluscs, mustard, tree nuts, peanuts, sesame, soybeans, and sulphur dioxide/sulphites above 10 mg per kg or litre.
For food served loose — a plated brunch, a counter pastry — the information can be given in writing or verbally, but there must be something that signposts customers to ask, and the answers must be right every time, on every shift. That's why 'ask the chef' fails in practice: the chef changes, the recipe changes, the supplier swaps a pesto for one with cashews, and yesterday's right answer is today's incident.
Since 1 October 2021, food that is prepacked for direct sale — packed on the premises before the customer orders it, like the grab-and-go sandwiches in your chiller — must carry a label with the food's name and a full ingredient list with the 14 allergens emphasised.
The FSA's definition has two conditions: the food is packaged at the same premises it is offered or sold from, and it is in that packaging before the customer orders or selects it. The batch-made sandwiches wrapped and chilled before service meet both, so they're PPDS. Food packed after the customer orders it — at their request — is not PPDS; unpackaged food follows the loose-food rules; and food packaged by another business before it reaches you is standard prepacked food with its own labelling regime.
The law carries Natasha Ednan-Laperouse's name: she died in 2016 after eating a baguette containing sesame that, under the rules of the time, did not have to be individually labelled. The change that took effect on 1 October 2021 closed that exemption for PPDS food.
The tool that makes all of this workable is an allergen matrix: every menu item down one side, the 14 allergens across the top, and an honest mark in every cell — including 'may contain' where cross-contact is real (a kitchen dusted in flour, a fryer shared with battered fish).
The matrix is only as good as its maintenance. Recipe changed? Supplier ingredient swapped? The matrix changes the same day, and the copy at the counter matches it. A stale matrix is worse than none, because staff trust it.
Common questions
Celery, cereals containing gluten, crustaceans, eggs, fish, lupin, milk, molluscs, mustard, tree nuts, peanuts, sesame, soybeans, and sulphur dioxide/sulphites (above 10 mg/kg or 10 mg/L). Every food business must be able to say which of these are in anything it serves.
Natasha's Law is the common name for the PPDS labelling requirement in force since 1 October 2021: food packaged at the same premises it's sold from, and packaged before the customer orders or selects it, must carry a label with the food's name and a full ingredient list with the 14 allergens emphasised. It is named after Natasha Ednan-Laperouse, who died in 2016 after eating a prepacked baguette containing unlabelled sesame.
If you package food on the premises before the customer orders or selects it — sandwiches or salads made ahead, wrapped and put in a chiller — yes: those items are prepacked for direct sale (PPDS) and must carry a full ingredient label with the 14 allergens emphasised. Food made to order, or packed at the customer's request, follows the loose-food rules instead.
For loose food, information may be provided verbally — but there must be a clear signpost telling customers where to ask, and the answer must be accurate and consistent. In practice, EHOs expect to see a written system behind the verbal answer, and a maintained allergen matrix is the standard way to provide it.
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Links verified 2026-07-16. Spotted something out of date? Tell us and we'll correct it.
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