What Are the 14 EU Allergens Every Kitchen Must Declare?

Under EU Regulation 1169/2011, every food business must declare 14 specific allergens whenever they're present in a dish — on packaging, on menus, or in written information available to the guest. The rule has applied to restaurants and cafés, not just packaged food, since December 2014. The 14: cereals containing gluten, crustaceans, eggs, fish, peanuts, soybeans, milk, tree nuts, celery, mustard, sesame, sulphites, lupin, and molluscs.

Here's the working-kitchen version: what each one covers, where it hides, and what the letters on your menu actually mean.

The 14, with where they hide

Three lines from that table catch working kitchens most often: celery (it's in almost every stock), sulphites (any dish finished with wine), and mustard (hiding in half the dressings on the menu).

What the letter codes actually are — and aren't

The A–R letters common on menus in Austria and Germany are a convention, not the law itself. The regulation demands that allergen information be available and accurate; the letters are one accepted way to deliver it — but only with a legend. A menu showing "A, C, G" next to a dish with no key explaining the letters doesn't satisfy the requirement. Numeric codes (1–14) are the same idea, common in German LMIV practice. Whatever system you use: the guest must be able to decode it at the point of choice.

Also worth knowing: verbal-only disclosure stopped being sufficient long ago. If your staff says "just ask us about allergens," written information must exist and be producible when asked.

How other regions differ

If your kitchen, menu, or app serves guests beyond the EU, the mandatory lists shift:

• United Kingdom — kept the same 14 after Brexit (retained 1169/2011, enforced by the FSA).
• United States — the FDA's "Big 9": milk, eggs, fish, crustacean shellfish, tree nuts, peanuts, wheat, soybeans, and — since 2023 — sesame. Note: wheat, not gluten-cereals; celery, mustard, lupin, molluscs and sulphites are not on the federal list.
• Canada — 11 priority allergens: the US-style list plus mustard and sulphites, and molluscs counted within shellfish.
• Australia / New Zealand — 12 items under FSANZ's plain-English labelling rules, including lupin.
• Japan — 8 mandatory items (with walnut added in 2023), including two the EU doesn't single out: buckwheat and specific crustaceans (shrimp and crab listed individually).

The practical consequence: an allergen matrix built for one region silently under-declares in another. If you cook for international guests — or publish menus online where anyone can read them — know which list you're declaring against.

Building the habit that survives inspection

1. One source of truth. An allergen matrix per dish, updated when recipes change — not a chalkboard memory.
2. Check supplier labels on every delivery. Manufacturers reformulate without warning; last month's mustard-free spice mix isn't a promise.
3. Say "contains" with confidence, "free from" with extreme care. Cross-contact in a working kitchen makes "guaranteed free" a dangerous phrase; "made without [allergen], traces possible" is the honest formulation.
4. Brief the floor. The regulation is judged at the moment a guest asks a waiter — that answer must match the kitchen's matrix.

Related questions

Do the rules apply to unpackaged restaurant food? Yes — since December 2014, non-prepacked food including restaurant and café service is fully covered. That was the regulation's biggest change.

Is "may contain traces" legally required? Precautionary trace labelling is not mandated by 1169/2011 — it's voluntary. But if cross-contact is a real risk in your kitchen, stating it is both safer for the guest and safer for you.

Are allergen letter codes the same across the EU? No — the letters are national/industry conventions. The 14 allergens are EU-wide law; how you display them varies by country and house style, as long as a legend makes them clear.

What happens if a kitchen gets it wrong? Enforcement is national: fines, orders, and in severe cases criminal liability — and beyond the law, an allergic reaction traced to wrong information is the kind of event no kitchen recovers from lightly. Accuracy is the whole game.

This article is educational, based on official sources including Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011. Regulations change and national implementations differ — always verify against the official texts and your local food authority. Responsibility for allergen declarations lies with the food business serving the food.

Catalin Cucu is a chef and the founder of DigitalKnife — the kitchen toolkit with an allergen guide covering 18 allergens across 8 regional regulations.