Our simple and clear food allergen and ingredient icons
will help keep your customers informed, quickly and effectively.
celery
crustaceans
eggs
fish
milk
molluscs
gluten
mustard
lupin
nuts
peanuts
seasame seeds
soya
sulphur dioxide
trace allergen
ingredients
Do you feel safe when eating food you haven't prepared yourself?
Have you thought about offering your customers the choices they want?
Do your customers trust you and what you are serving?
Do you have all procedures in places to cover allergens?
Are you selling food that is pre-packed for direct sale? (PPDS)
Do you make wedding cakes, sell cakes at a fete for charities, make buscuits for sale?
And did you know that from October 2021, if you produce and package food for sale on site, you must ensure each
individual item has a label containing a full list of ingredients? "Natasha's Law" is new food labelling legislation that builds on
the 2014 regulations by including freshly made, non pre-packaged food in the labelling rules.
The good new is, there is a ready-made, cost-effective solution available to help you correctly label your foods and keep allergen sufferers safe.
Allergen Checker's unique software covers all your needs,
from printed ingredient labels and menus all for £1 per day*.
For some people, something as simple as getting a takeaway or buying a home-made cake can be scary and even life-threatening prospect.
So whether you bake cakes for a living, run a children's nursery, or manage a busy deli, cafe or takeaway, it's crucial to fulfil your labelling obligations to keep your clients safe, and ensure your business avoids serious financial penalties (and potentially criminal offences) that could befall the unwary.
Whether you're a sole trader or a multi-venue retailer, you simply have to treat these labelling rules as a priority, but at Allergen Checker we understand that doing this alone can prove a bit of a headache. Keeping track of your product lists, and the ingredients you choose (and sometimes chop and change) for particular dishes, can easily descend into chaos!
Mark Morgan-Huntley, the chef behind Allergen Checker, has decades of restaurant experience and knows exactly how you feel. He launched this unique food labelling service to help businesses of all shapes and sizes stay on the right side of the law in an easy-to-use, value-for-money way, and can support your compliance with all allergen regulations in just a few simple steps.
Our comprehensive food labelling system enables you to fully display all food allergens, helping customers with food allergies and food intolerances feel safe in what they are eating.
Step 1
Create your own virtual food cupboard
Simply type in all the ingredients that you use in your food products and dishes and they will be stored in your own virtual food cupboard. Add accurate information from labels or data sheets. We have included a generic list of ingredients to get you started.
Step 2
Design dishes and add to menus in minutes
Once you have added all your ingredients, create your dishes and save them in different categories for easy indexing, so when you want to create a menu you can find them at a touch of a button.
Step 3
Comply with “Natasha’s Law” and print your labels and menus
Printing your menus is easy. You don’t need any special printers - just a standard A4 printer, some plain white paper and you can print menus to show your customers exactly what’s in their food.
For full ingredient labels, we have teamed up with A4Labels.com to make this as seamless as possible. Once your full ingredient label is ready, choose from our selection of preset label sizes, order directly from A4Labels and your plain labels will be dispatched to you ready for printing. Alternatively, use your own plain labels and cut to size.
Order Labels
"It is estimated that two million people
are living with a food allergy in the UK,
and I believe we should take some
responsibility for ensuring our products
don't harm them"
Mark G Morgan-Huntley
Founder of Allergen Checker
With more than three decades of kitchen and restaurant management experience under his belt, chef-cum-entrepreneur Mark Morgan-Huntley is no stranger to the complexities of creating delicious meals while keeping allergy-prone customers safe.
Mark launched Allergen Checker in 2014 and is continually developing the service to ensure his clients can stay ahead of the curve with the new compliance requirements coming into force in 2021.
He said: "For some, allergies are nothing more than a slight irritation. But, when it comes to food allergies, for some people eating the wrong thing can mean life or death. It is estimated the two million people are living with a food allergy in the UK, and I believe we should take some responsibility for ensuring our products don't harm them".
Natasha's Law will not only prevent severe reactions and deaths, it will also reassure the millions of people across the UK who suffer with food allergies. Food businesses of all sizes already have to implement a food labelling system that lists all ingredients for pre-packaged food, as well as highlighting any of the 14 allergens, but the updated rules will also apply to any food products for sale that have been freshly prepared on site.
This means staff may require training on ingredients and labelling, and there is an inevitable expense associated with this, for the time it takes to the printing of labels and menus. But the ultimate purpose is to protect lives and raise awareness of food allergen information.
"Food labelling has never been as important as it is now," Mark explained. "I've seen first-hand how challenging it is to get the correct information to the customer. Nobody wants to make anybody ill by not providing them with the right details, the new regulations have really tightened up the process to stop people slipping through the net. And turning a blind eye isn't an option - the consequences for the customer, and your business, are too great.
"You do need to invest a bit of time inputting the 'virtual store cupboard' ingredients for your dishes on Allergen Checker, but after that it's really easy to use, and you can make amendments and additions whenever you wish."
With two different Allergen Checker packages on offer, plus a free 30-day trial, you can choose what best suits your business needs. Mark added: "For some larger companies, keeping track of labelling and menus can become someone's full-time job. Using Allergen Checker's 'Plus' package, where we take care of the whole process, removes all the stress and strain from compliance and frees up staff time to focus on your core business."
There's no need to play roulette with your customers' safety or the future of your business - sign up now for a free trial of Allergen Checker or contact us for more information.
What are the 14 regulated allergens?
Celery | Cereals containing gluten (oats and barley) | Crustaceans (crabs, lobster, prawns) | Eggs | Fish | Milk | Lupin | Molluscs (oysters and mussels) | Mustard | Seasame | Peanuts | Soybeans | Sulphur dioxide and sulphites (for concentrations above ten parts per million) | Tree nuts (almonds, walnuts, Brazil nuts, hazelnuts, pecans, cashews, macadamias, and pistachios)
What is Natasha's Law?
For full details, see the UK Food Standard Agency guidance. Click here
What are the risks associated with non-compliance?
Any business that sells food and doesn't comply could face significant financial penalties and even be prosecuted for criminal offense.
I'm not a food outlet but my business does sell a small amount
of food to customers, do I have to comply with these regulations?
Yes. If you provide any meals or packaged food to clients or visitors to your business, you must comply with the labelling regulations.
I run a takeaway, do all our meals have to be labelled?
Yes, they do. Our Allergen Checker labelling system is ideal for creating labels that can be attached to your takeaway packaging.
Contact us now for some no-obligation advice on
how we can help you and your business, or sign up for a free 30-day trial!
30 Days
Required To Meet Allergen Law 2021
£360 inc VAT Per Year
For Multi-Site Venues, Schools, Stadiums, etc.
We’re always on hand to make sure you get the most out of our comprehensive food labelling system.
Once you have signed up, we will talk you through the system with our “how-to video tutorials” or you can head to our YouTube channel.
You'll find Allergen Checker super easy, but we're always here to help with our online support portal
by Allergen Checker
Coming Soon
Our community app to help you eat out safely