The UK still currently follows the European Food Information For Consumers Regulation (FIR) that took effect from December 2014.
This applies to unpackaged food eg restaurants, takeaway’s deli’s, bakeries etc. It now also applies to food prepacked for direct sale (PPDS) such as a sandwich made on the premises of a cafe but wrapped (Natasha’s law).
Allergy advice boxes are no longer permitted, although “may contain” advisory labels are. The allergen should be emphasised in the ingredients panel through typeset eg font, style, colour. The specific type of cereal or nut must also be stated.
The 14 allergens that must be highlighted under UK/European law are: cereals containing gluten (wheat, barley, rye etc), crustaceans (eg shrimp, prawn), molluscs (eg mussel, oyster), eggs, fish, peanuts, nuts, soybeans, milk, celery, mustard, sesame, lupin and sulphur dioxide at levels above 10mg/kg, or 10 mg/litre, expressed as SO2. Lupin and Molluscs added later.
There are some exceptions, where the food is so highly processed that they are no longer capable of triggering an adverse reaction eg fish gelatine in beer/wine, soya in vegetable oil.
If your allergy is not one of those listed, eg lentil, there is no legal duty for the manufacturer to highlight the presence of that ingredient, or for the restaurant to provide a full list of ingredients. So you need to read the full list of ingredients carefully, and plead with the restaurant for details relevant to your allergy. In the past, some manufacturers highlighted allergens in a separate box, but this is no longer permitted.
The rules list nuts as:
- almond,
- hazelnut,
- walnut,
- cashew nut,
- pecan nut,
- Brazil nut,
- pistachio nut,
- macadamia nut or Queensland nut
- and products made from these nuts.
Other types of nuts, and other foods which are not nuts (even though they are called nuts i.e. chestnuts, pine nuts and coconut), are not named in the rules, even though they are known to cause allergy in some people.
Note that by law, “cereals containing gluten” includes oats! Spelt and Kamut should be declared as containing wheat. Oats contain avenin, rather than gliadin, but related. Products containing oats that have not been contaminated by wheat can be declared “gluten free” by law, so effectively the law considers oats as both containing but not containing gluten…
See also Advisory labels.
(food.gov technical guidance on new labelling law)
There is no legal duty to highlight changes in recipes on packaging. The same product with the same packaging can sometimes have different ingredients, depending on where it is produced.
The Food Standards Agency (FSA) has ordered councils to encourage restaurant owners to check their ingredients.
Note that non-EU countries will have their own rules eg US has only 10 ingredients that must be highlighted (not molluscs, mustard, celery, or lupin).