The 14 allergens UK food labels must declare — and how to plan meals around them
If you cook for someone with a food allergy in the UK, the law is quietly on your side: any of 14 named allergens in packaged food must be emphasised — usually in bold — in the ingredients list. Knowing the 14, and where each one hides, turns label-reading from guesswork into a routine.
What are the 14 UK allergens?
UK food law requires these to be declared on prepacked food:
- Celery — including celeriac; hides in stock cubes, soups and spice mixes
- Cereals containing gluten — wheat, rye, barley, oats; hides in soy sauce, sausages and gravy granules
- Crustaceans — prawns, crab, lobster; watch Thai pastes and fish sauces
- Eggs — also in fresh pasta, mayonnaise and some glazed bakery goods
- Fish — hides in Worcestershire sauce and some salad dressings
- Lupin — a flour in some continental breads and pastries
- Milk — also in "lactose-free" products (still milk protein) and many crisps
- Molluscs — mussels, squid, snails; watch oyster sauce
- Mustard — hides in curry pastes, salad cream and marinades
- Peanuts — also in groundnut oil and many Asian sauces
- Sesame — tahini, houmous, many bakery toppings
- Soya — tofu, edamame, and a huge range of processed foods
- Sulphites — dried fruit, wine, some sausages (declared over a threshold)
- Tree nuts — almonds, hazelnuts, cashews, walnuts, pecans, pistachios, Brazils, macadamias
Why does the UK list 14 when America lists 9?
US law recognises nine major allergens. The UK (and EU) list adds celery, mustard, lupin, molluscs and sulphites. This matters if you use American recipe sites or apps: a plan that's "allergy-safe" by US rules can sail straight past a mustard or celery allergy, because the tool was never told those allergens exist.
How does allergen labelling actually work?
On prepacked UK food, the 14 must be emphasised in the ingredients list — that's why "WHEAT flour" shouts at you from the packet. "May contain" warnings are different: they're voluntary statements about cross-contamination risk, not ingredients. If you're managing a severe allergy, both lines matter, and the label is always the final word — recipes change without notice.
How do you plan a week of meals around an allergy?
The manual version is doable but relentless: find seven dinners that avoid the allergen, check every ingredient, write a shopping list, then re-check labels in the shop. Do it every week, for every allergen in the house, forever.
This is the job Fork It was built for. It's a free Android app that plans your week around any of the 14 UK allergens — pick yours, and it aims to keep them out of every recipe it generates, checking ingredient by ingredient with a deterministic safety scan rather than a loose label filter. You get a week of dinners, lunches that use up the leftovers, and one shopping list in the words UK supermarkets actually use. Nutrition information comes from CoFID, the UK government's own food composition dataset — not a US database.
And because manufacturers change recipes, Fork It tells you what every other honest tool should: always check the label.
For the term-time version of this — dinners planned around school routine, with lunches from the leftovers — see our guide to allergy-friendly family dinners for the school term.