Free allergen matrix template

An allergen matrix is only as good as the day it was last checked against the actual recipe. A sauce that used to be dairy-free and now has a splash of cream in it is the realistic way this goes wrong — not a dish invented from scratch, but a small change nobody updated the sheet for. The header field for the last review date exists so that gap is visible rather than assumed away.

The 14 allergens listed are the ones named in EU Regulation 1169/2011 and carried into UK law (gluten-containing cereals, crustaceans, egg, fish, peanuts, soybeans, milk, nuts, celery, mustard, sesame, sulphur dioxide/sulphites, lupin, molluscs). Outside the EU/UK, the list of what has to be declared differs — the US FDA names nine major allergens including sesame as of 2023, and other countries vary again. Relabel the columns if you are trading somewhere else; do not assume the EU list is universal.

Mark a cell with the dish's own ingredients, not with what a similar dish elsewhere usually contains. 'Contains' and 'may contain traces of' are different claims with different legal weight in most jurisdictions — this template deliberately keeps one mark per cell and leaves the notes column for you to write out cross-contamination risk in your own words rather than inventing a third symbol that means something different to every member of staff.

This sheet is a reference tool for staff, not a substitute for getting proper legal advice on allergen labelling in your jurisdiction, and not a guarantee a dish is safe for a given guest — a server should always flag a serious allergy to the kitchen directly, every time, regardless of what the matrix says.