Your 14-allergen notice, generated in 2 minutes

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Add your dishes one at a time, then tick the allergens each contains. The printable document updates with every tick.

What the rules actually require

Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011, known as “INCO”, has required since December 2014 that consumers be informed of the presence of the allergenic substances listed in its Annex II. The duty is not limited to packaged goods: it also covers non-prepacked food, meaning dishes served in a restaurant, a bar, a food truck or a hotel buffet.

In France, decree No 2015-447 sets out the practicalities: the information must be written, available on the premises, and accessible without the guest having to ask. That last point is the one most often missed. A folder kept behind the bar that has to be requested from a server does not meet the accessibility requirement; a notice displayed in the room, a line on the menu pointing to where it can be consulted, or a digital display all do.

• The information exists in written form, not only in the chef's head.
• It can be consulted on the premises, at the moment of choosing.
• Guests can reach it themselves, without asking.
• It covers every dish served, including daily specials and set menus.
• It is dated and updated whenever a recipe or a supplier changes.

What a non-compliant venue risks

Inspections are carried out by the French consumer authority (DGCCRF), which checks that the information exists, is accurate and is accessible. Outcomes range from a warning to an order to comply, up to an administrative fine depending on how the breach is classified and whether it is repeated.

We deliberately quote no figure: the numbers circulating on trade blogs mix different classifications and repealed texts. The official sources listed at the foot of this page are the only reference worth holding up during an inspection. In most venues the real risk is not financial anyway — it is the guest incident, a reaction after a dish declared peanut-free whose sauce contained peanuts.

Reading the 14 categories without slipping up

The Annex II categories are broader than their names suggest, and that is where most filling-in mistakes hide. A few traps come up again and again.

• Cereals containing gluten does not mean “wheat”: the category covers wheat, rye, barley, oats, spelt, kamut and their hybrids. Beer and soy sauce usually contain it.
• Nuts does not include peanuts, which are legumes and form their own category. Almonds, hazelnuts, walnuts, cashews, pecans, Brazil nuts, pistachios and macadamias are the nuts.
• Sulphur dioxide and sulphites only has to be declared above 10 mg/kg or 10 mg/l. In practice: wines, dried fruit, some prepared potatoes and many preserves.
• Milk covers lactose but also every milk protein — butter, cream, cheese, whey, casein added to an industrial preparation.
• Celery turns up in a surprising number of stocks, bouillon cubes and spice mixes: it is the most frequently missed one.
• Molluscs (mussels, oysters, snails, squid, octopus) and crustaceans (prawns, crab, lobster, langoustines) are two separate categories.

The limit of a printed chart

The document you have just produced is accurate today. It will stop being accurate at the first change: a sauce swapped, a supplier tweaking their recipe, a special added to the board. And that is precisely the moment when nobody thinks to reopen the file, reprint it and replace the copy on display.

That is a weakness of the format, not of the method. When the allergen is carried by the dish itself inside a digital menu, it follows every change with no extra step, and guests can filter the menu by their own allergies instead of scanning a fourteen-column matrix. The reference guide on restaurant allergens compares both approaches.

What this tool does with your data

Nothing is transmitted. Entry, matrix and page layout stay in your browser; printing is your browser's, not a generation on our servers. No dish name, venue name or logo reaches us, and nothing survives closing the tab.

If you choose to create an account to keep the dishes you have already entered, and only then, the list travels inside the sign-up link. You can read it in your browser address bar before confirming.

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