Ordinami.itWhen it comes to allergens, you can't improvise: the EU 1169/2011 regulation requires anyone serving food - restaurants, bars, pizzerias, and delis - to inform customers about the presence of the 14 main allergens in their dishes. This isn't abstract bureaucracy: for those with allergies, it's a matter of health, and for establishments, it's a legal obligation with concrete penalties in case of inspection. Let's see what needs to be done, in practice.
The 14 allergens to declare
The list is set by Annex II of the regulation: gluten-containing cereals, crustaceans, eggs, fish, peanuts, soy, milk, nuts, celery, mustard, sesame, sulfur dioxide and sulfites above certain thresholds, lupins, and mollusks. Every menu item containing one of these ingredients, even as part of a preparation, must be indicated.
How to indicate them
- Directly on the menu, next to each dish: numbers, abbreviations, or icons with a legend. This is the clearest solution for the customer.
- In an allergen register or book that can be consulted, as long as the menu clearly refers to where the information can be found.
- It's not enough to use a generic formula like "for allergen information, ask the staff" if the staff doesn't know how to respond: the information must be written, precise, and available.
Mistakes seen during inspections
- Updated menu, allergen table two years old: the recipe has changed, but the declaration hasn't.
- Dish of the day and off-menu items without any indication.
- Cross-contamination ignored: using the same fryer for croquettes and squid is an issue that needs to be managed and explained.
- Untrained waiting staff who invent or downplay information when asked.
Why digital tools help a lot
The practical problem with allergens on paper is alignment: every recipe change would require a reprint, and the two things diverge. On a digital menu, allergens are an attribute of the dish: change the recipe, update the checkbox, and the menu the customer sees is correct from that moment on. With Ordinami, you select allergens for each dish from a predefined list, and the customer sees them clearly next to each item, even in translated versions - a detail that's not negligible, given that foreign customers with allergies are the most delicate case in the dining room.
To do this week
Print the list of 14 allergens, go through the menu item by item with the kitchen staff, write the map, and put it where the waiting staff can consult it. If the menu is already online, update the checkboxes at the same time. It's two hours of work that remove a legal risk and, above all, make a customer who usually chooses a restaurant based on this feel safe. If you're starting from scratch, create the menu with allergens already set up: doing it right from the start costs less than fixing it later. And remember that training needs to be refreshed with every staff change: the system only works if the latest arrival knows where to find the information and what to respond to a customer with allergies.