Menus With Allergens: The 14 EU Allergens and How to List Them

Every food business in the European Union that serves non-prepacked food — restaurants, cafés, bars, gelaterias, takeaways — has to make allergen information available to its guests. The rule comes from EU Regulation 1169/2011, and it applies in Malta just as it does in Italy, France or Germany. Here's what it covers and how to handle it properly on a digital menu.

The 14 allergens you must declare

• Cereals containing gluten (wheat, rye, barley, oats, spelt, kamut)
• Crustaceans (prawns, crab, lobster)
• Eggs
• Fish
• Peanuts
• Soybeans
• Milk (including lactose)
• Tree nuts (almonds, hazelnuts, walnuts, cashews, pecans, Brazil nuts, pistachios, macadamia)
• Celery
• Mustard
• Sesame seeds
• Sulphur dioxide and sulphites (above 10 mg/kg or 10 mg/litre)
• Lupin
• Molluscs (mussels, clams, squid, octopus)

What the rule means in practice

The information has to be accurate, easy to find and available before the guest orders. How it must be provided — written on the menu, in a separate allergen chart, or verbally with a clear notice inviting guests to ask — depends on national rules, so check the current requirements with your local food safety authority. Whatever format you use, it has to match what actually goes into each dish today, not what went into it last season.

Why paper and PDF menus make allergens hard

• Recipes change, printed menus don't. An old allergen chart is worse than none.
• Footnote symbols and tiny numbers are hard to read — especially on a phone, zoomed into a PDF.
• Staff get asked the same questions at every table, in every language, during the busiest hour.

How to show allergens on a digital menu

• Attach allergens to each dish, not to a separate page guests have to find.
• Use the names of the allergens, not just symbols or numbers.
• Update them in the same place you update the dish, so they never drift out of sync.
• Keep a short note inviting guests to speak to staff about severe allergies and cross-contamination.

How menu.video handles allergens

In menu.video, every dish has its own allergen selection covering all 14 EU allergens. When a guest opens a dish, the allergens appear right under it, written out in the guest's language, next to the video and the price. Change a recipe, update the allergens from your phone, and the menu is correct for the next guest who scans the QR code.

Allergen information is your responsibility as the food business operator — a digital menu makes it easier to keep accurate, it doesn't replace checking your recipes. Want to see how it looks for guests? Scroll the live demo.