On December 13, 2014, based on regulation No. 1169/2011, relating to the provision of food information, the obligation to inform the consumer about the presence of allergens, in products sold or offered in all came into force. public shops, from supermarkets to restaurants .
The provision was strongly desired by the European Union to protect, in particular, that category of consumer suffering from food allergies and / or intolerances.
What changes for restaurants
For all foods, including loose foods, the presence of allergens must be indicated among the ingredients. The obligation concerns companies that produce food, but also restaurants, bars, pastry shops, cafeterias, canteens, stalls, even airline and railway companies; in short, all the businesses that sell and / or offer food products .
Restaurants, like all other public establishments, are therefore now obliged to inform their customers about the presence of the allergens indicated in the new regulation. Most likely, they will do this by entering information on the menu.
Read more about food intolerances
What changes for other public establishments
For packaged products, sold in supermarkets, basically nothing changes, since the obligation to indicate allergenic substances has already existed for several years; the only difference concerns the reporting method: according to the regulation that has just come into force it must, in fact, be more evident " through a type of character clearly distinct from the other ingredients listed, for example in terms of size, style or background color ".
Even pre-packaged food for direct sales, that is, for example, cold cuts or cheeses packaged by supermarket staff and already sold in portions, must indicate the presence of allergens.
The new standard created the problem on how to provide this indication in the exhibitors. Restaurants, as mentioned earlier, will be able to do this directly on the menu, but the exercises that do not have a menu, or change it continuously, as they will do?
Bars and pastry shops, as was already the case in some cases, can add tags next to the products, with the indication of allergens, and the same will be possible for the stalls.
It is not, however, still clear how the tables will behave and if it will be allowed to warn merchants by voice rather than in writing. While waiting for the application of the rule to be completely clarified, let's see what are the allergens that must be indicated.
What allergens does the new standard cover?
The new standard concerns 14 substances :
- Cereals containing gluten and derived products, with some exceptions.
- Crustaceans and shellfish products.
- Eggs and egg products.
- Fish and fish products, with a couple of exceptions.
- Peanuts and peanut products.
- Soy and soy products, with some exceptions.
- Milk and milk-based products (including lactose), with some exceptions.
- Nuts and derivatives, with the exception of nuts used for making alcoholic distillates.
- Celery and celery based products.
- Mustard and mustard-based products.
- Mustard seeds and mustard seed products.
- Sulfur dioxide and sulphites in concentrations higher than 10 mg per kilo or per liter.
- Lupins and products based on lupins .
- Shellfish and shellfish products.
