Every dish you sell, every allergen it contains. The chart exists so that when someone asks whether the soup has celery in it, the answer comes off a document rather than out of somebody’s memory of a recipe they did not write.
It is also the record an inspector will test by picking a dish at random and asking.
Dishes down, allergens across
The FSA chart is a wide grid, which is why it prints A3 landscape while the rest of the pack is A4. The app keeps the same column order as the official form, so a chart printed from the app and one filled in by hand read identically.
Adding dishes is the slow part on paper. The app can take a menu and pull the dish names out of it to save the typing, but it deliberately imports names only. Nothing guesses what is in your food.
The fourteen statutory allergens
In the order the FSA chart lists them:
- Celery
- Cereals containing gluten
- Crustaceans
- Eggs
- Fish
- Lupin
- Milk
- Molluscs
- Mustard
- Nuts
- Peanuts
- Sesame seeds
- Soya
- Sulphur dioxide
Nuts and peanuts are separate columns because they are separate allergens. Someone allergic to peanuts may be fine with almonds, and the reverse.
Why "may contain" is its own answer
Each cell has three possible answers rather than two: yes, no, and may contain. The third is not a hedge. It is a term of art meaning there is a real risk of cross-contamination you cannot rule out, and it must not be flattened into either of the others.
Flatten it to "no" and you tell an allergic customer the food is safe when it might not be. Flatten it to "yes" and you rule out a dish they could have eaten, which sounds harmless until it is every dish on the menu and the chart stops being usable.
The app also keeps "not yet answered" separate from "no". A blank cell means nobody has decided, and a chart that showed those as "no" would be actively dangerous.
Keeping it current
A chart goes out of date quietly: a supplier changes a recipe, a chef swaps an ingredient, a special goes on the board. None of those events announce themselves to a laminated sheet in a drawer.
This is why the four-weekly review asks about allergen information by name. On a phone the chart changes in seconds and everybody sees the current version, rather than the copy that happens to be nearest.
Common questions
How many allergens have to be declared?
Fourteen, set in law: celery, cereals containing gluten, crustaceans, eggs, fish, lupin, milk, molluscs, mustard, nuts, peanuts, sesame seeds, soya and sulphur dioxide.
What does "may contain" mean on an allergen chart?
That there is a real risk of cross-contamination you cannot rule out. It is a separate answer from yes and from no, and should not be recorded as either.
Do I need an allergen chart if I have allergen labels?
Labelling covers pre-packed food. The chart covers what you make and serve, and is what the SFBB pack asks for.
Can the app work out the allergens in my dishes?
No, and deliberately so. It can import dish names from a menu to save typing, but what is in your food is your knowledge to record. Guessing would be the wrong kind of helpful.
Why does the chart print on A3?
Fourteen allergen columns plus dish names do not fit legibly on A4. The official FSA chart is landscape, and the app matches it.
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