The Importance of Displaying Allergen Warnings on Menus

Adding Allergens Icons are required by law in many countries.  For example, restaurants and takeaways, across Europe will be required by law to tell customers if their food contains ingredients known to trigger allergies. There may be fines for repeat offenders. According to the European Academy of Allergy, food allergies affect more than 17 million people across Europe.

Experts say that majority of these incidents are avoidable and some are a result of people being given incorrect information about ingredients.

Under the new legislation (EU FIC FOOD Information for Consumers Regulation) customers must be told if their food contains any of the following;

• celery – including any found in stock cubes and soup
• cereals containing gluten – including spelt, wheat, rye, barley
• crustaceans – eg crabs, lobster, prawns and shrimp paste
• eggs – including food glazed with egg
• fish
• lupin – can be found in some types of bread, pastries, pasta
• milk
• molluscs – mussels, land snails, squid, also found in oyster sauce
• mustard
• nuts – for example almonds, hazelnuts, walnuts, macadamia
• peanuts – also found in groundnut oil
• sesame seeds – found in some bread, houmous, tahini
• soya – found in beancurd, edamame beans, tofu
• sulphur dioxide – used as a preservative in dried fruit, meat products, soft drinks, vegetables, alcohol.

FineDine Tablet Menu has a solution 

The new feature of allergen warnings allows cafés & restaurants to give the information on allergens contained in their food. It is easy to pick and display the allergens on FineDine Tablet Menu App. Unlike traditional paper menus, there would also no need for reprinting when new items and their allergens are added on the current menus.

Users can easily add below ingredients into any food items;