What are the 14 allergens that must be declared?
UK law names 14: cereals containing gluten, crustaceans, eggs, fish, peanuts, soybeans, milk, nuts, celery, mustard, sesame, sulphur dioxide and sulphites, lupin, and molluscs. Any food business has to be able to tell a customer whether a dish contains any of them.
Knowing the list is the easy half. The harder part is knowing where each one hides, and the course spends time on exactly that: mustard in a mayonnaise, sulphites in dried fruit, celery in a stock powder, milk powder in a bread mix.
Is allergen training a legal requirement?
Food businesses must give accurate allergen information to customers under the food information regulations, and food handlers must be trained in food hygiene matters appropriate to their work. No law names a specific allergen certificate.
Training is how a business shows its staff can meet the duty, which matters when an environmental health officer asks who briefed the new starter on the allergen matrix.
What does Natasha’s Law require?
Natasha’s Law has applied since 1 October 2021. It requires food that is prepacked for direct sale to carry a full ingredient list with the allergens emphasised within it. That covers anything packed on site before a customer orders, such as a sandwich made at 7am and put in a chiller.
Food made to order and handed straight to the customer is outside the labelling rule, though the allergen information still has to be available and accurate.
How do you prevent allergen cross-contamination?
Separation and sequence do most of the work. Dedicated boards, utensils and cleaned prep areas, allergen-free orders prepared first where the flow allows, ingredients kept sealed and stored away from open food, and a proper handwash between tasks.
Wiping a board with a service cloth is where most kitchens come unstuck. The course covers the routine rather than the theory behind it.
What should staff do if a customer has an allergic reaction?
Call 999 and say the word anaphylaxis, help the person use their own adrenaline auto-injector if they carry one, and keep them still rather than walking them outside or to a bathroom. Send someone to meet the ambulance.
Every member of the team should know this, managers included, because the reaction rarely happens near the office.
Who needs allergen awareness training?
Chefs, waiting staff, bar staff, counter and retail staff, delivery drivers, and the managers who write the procedures. The question about nuts usually reaches whoever is standing nearest, which is why the training runs across the whole team rather than the kitchen alone.
The guide to UK allergen training requirements sets out what an inspector expects to see on file.
