Solution · Allergens & Natasha's Law
Allergen disclosure stopped being a paper folder behind the till years ago. The customer needs to see it before they buy. The kitchen needs to see it before they cook. The label needs to be right before the food is wrapped. Andromeda makes that the default — not the extra step.
Most of the worry around allergens comes from mixing up two different obligations. They cover different food and require different actions.
The Food Information Regulations 2014 require any food business — including takeaways and restaurants — to be able to tell customers, accurately and on request, whether any of the 14 declarable allergens are present in any item.
The Food Information (Amendment) (England) Regulations 2019 — Natasha's Law — added a label requirement for food prepacked for direct sale (PPDS): items packaged on the premises before a customer orders them.
Both regulations refer to the same list. Andromeda treats each one as a structured data field on every product, not a free-text note.
The risk isn't usually that the data doesn't exist. It's that the data on the website doesn't match the data in the kitchen, which doesn't match what the till operator says on the phone. Andromeda has one source of truth — and pushes it everywhere.
Each product carries the 14 allergen flags as structured fields, edited once at group level and inherited by every site.
Allergens displayed on each product on the website, app and kiosk. Customer can flag their own allergies before checkout, attached to the order.
Customer-flagged allergies appear in red on the kitchen display and printed ticket — staff don't need to look anything up.
Update an ingredient at group level and every menu and every kitchen ticket reflects it from the next order onwards. There's no spreadsheet to re-print, no laminated card to swap out.
"The thing that sold us was the kitchen ticket. When the customer says 'no nuts' on the website, the team see it in red the second the order lands. We're not relying on someone reading the back of a folder anymore."
The Food Information (Amendment) (England) Regulations 2019 — known as Natasha's Law — requires food prepacked for direct sale (PPDS) to carry a label showing the full ingredient list, with the 14 declarable allergens emphasised. It came into force in October 2021 and equivalent regulations apply across the rest of the UK.
Not directly. Food prepared and handed over to order falls under FIC 2014 — you must be able to provide allergen information on request and signpost that customers can ask. You don't need a printed PPDS label. Natasha's Law specifically targets food packed before the customer orders it (e.g. wraps in a chilled cabinet).
If you do both — make to order and sell pre-packed items from a fridge — both regimes apply, item by item.
FIC 2014 requires the same allergen information online as in store. Andromeda's web ordering surfaces allergens on each menu item and prompts the customer to flag any allergies before checkout, so the information reaches them before they pay rather than as a label after the fact.
Allergen flags carry through to the kitchen ticket and the kitchen display — customer-flagged allergies are highlighted in red on the order so the team sees them without having to look anything up.
The Calorie Labelling (Out of Home Sector) Regulations 2022 apply in England to businesses with 250 or more employees. Smaller operators are not currently required to display calories. Andromeda surfaces calorie data per menu item alongside allergens for operators in scope, or those who choose to display it as best practice.
Andromeda gives you the platform to record, surface and print the right information at every touchpoint. The accuracy of the data — what's actually in each recipe — remains the operator's responsibility, as it does with any platform. We make doing it right the path of least resistance.
30-minute walkthrough showing the full path: menu editor → website → checkout → kitchen ticket, with your menu loaded as the example.
Book an allergen walkthrough