Allergen sheets are the record behind the answer to a customer's question, and there are two shapes: a sheet per dish, listing its allergens, or one matrix for the whole menu with a row per dish and a column per allergen. The Food Standards Agency's allergen guidance, cited below, says only the 14 allergens are required to be declared as allergens by food law: celery, cereals containing gluten, crustaceans, eggs, fish, lupin, milk, molluscs, mustard, peanuts, sesame, soybeans, sulphur dioxide and sulphites at more than ten parts per million, and tree nuts. The matrix wins for a small kitchen because it is one document to keep current. The allergen matrix on this site prints it from the menu, free and without an account; the paid product keeps the versions.
Sheet per dish
The dish, its recipe's ingredients, and the allergens each brings, read from the ingredient labels. Useful at the pass for a complex dish, and hard to keep current across a menu of forty. Each sheet is dated and replaced when the recipe or a supplier changes.
The matrix
Rows for dishes, columns for the 14 allergens, a mark where present and a note where cross-contact is possible. One page, dated, behind the counter and in the folder. The matrix on this site is built from the menu and prints in that shape.
Where the allergens come from
The ingredient labels and the supplier specifications, kept with the traceability record on this site, not memory. A changed supplier can change an allergen without changing the dish's name, which is why the matrix is rebuilt at the delivery, not at the complaint.
The sheets as a control
The allergen hazard is in the HACCP plan, and the matrix is its control: current, dated, and the source of every answer at the counter. ProbeLedger Pro keeps the matrix versions with the plan. FoodDocs lists its Lite plan at $99 per site per month billed monthly or $79 billed annually, and its Standard plan at $199 per site per month, with a free 14-day trial, on its pricing page cited below. ProbeLedger Pro is $49 per month for the whole site.
Questions people ask about allergen sheets
Do I have to show the allergen sheet to a customer?
Allergen information must be available and accurate; the matrix is how it is provided on request.
How often should the sheets be updated?
Whenever a recipe or a supplier changes, and reviewed with the menu.
Is the matrix free?
Yes, without an account.