Allergens on your menu: the 14 you must declare and the simplest way to do it

Since 2014, every food business in the EU must inform customers about the presence of 14 allergens in the food it serves. The rule is Regulation (EU) 1169/2011, applied in Spain through Real Decreto 126/2015. It covers restaurants, bars, cafés, takeaways and food shops selling unpackaged food, and it applies to every dish, including the daily menu and the tapa that comes with a drink.

The 14 allergens are: cereals containing gluten, crustaceans, eggs, fish, peanuts, soybeans, milk, nuts, celery, mustard, sesame, sulphur dioxide and sulphites, lupin, and molluscs.

The law does not force you to print them on the menu, although that is the most common solution. You may instead inform customers orally, but then you must have the information written down and available on the premises, and you must display a notice telling customers to ask. In practice, inspectors look for one of three things: allergen icons or letters next to each dish on the menu, an allergen chart available at the counter, or a clearly visible sign inviting customers to ask staff, backed by a written record in the kitchen.

The most robust approach for a small kitchen is a simple table: dishes down the side, the 14 allergens across the top, a mark where an allergen is present. Keep it in the kitchen, update it when a recipe or a supplier changes (a new brand of stock cube can add celery or gluten), and give the menu a small note: "Información sobre alérgenos disponible. Pregunte a nuestro personal."

Two common mistakes: forgetting cross-contamination (the fryer used for both calamari and chips means the chips may contain molluscs and gluten) and forgetting drinks (wine and beer contain sulphites and gluten respectively).