[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":326},["ShallowReactive",2],{"blog-allergen-labelling-office-catering-uk":3,"blog-related-allergen-labelling-office-catering-uk":294},{"id":4,"title":5,"author":6,"authorImage":6,"authorTitle":6,"body":7,"category":277,"date":278,"description":279,"extension":280,"featured":281,"image":282,"meta":283,"navigation":284,"path":285,"readTime":286,"seo":287,"stem":288,"tags":289,"__hash__":293},"blog\u002Fblog\u002Fallergen-labelling-office-catering-uk.md","Allergen Rules for Office Catering: What UK Employers Need to Get Right",null,{"type":8,"value":9,"toc":265},"minimark",[10,14,17,20,25,28,31,35,51,54,57,60,64,67,80,83,87,90,93,96,103,107,110,116,122,128,134,138,141,172,175,179,182,185,191,202,210,214,220,226,232,243,246,259],[11,12,13],"p",{},"Somebody in your building orders lunch for other people. An office manager, an EA, a facilities lead, occasionally a graduate who drew the short straw. That person is making allergen decisions on behalf of colleagues whose medical history they do not know, usually under time pressure, usually without training.",[11,15,16],{},"This is the part of workplace food that nobody puts in the benefits deck, and it is the part that carries actual risk. Around 6% of UK adults have a food allergy, and roughly 1 in 100 has coeliac disease. In a 200-person London office, that is a dozen people for whom the wrong platter is not a disappointment but a hospital visit.",[11,18,19],{},"The rules are clearer than most buyers realise. Here is what applies, what changed recently, and what to ask a supplier before the next order.",[21,22,24],"h2",{"id":23},"the-14-allergens","The 14 allergens",[11,26,27],{},"UK law names 14 allergens that must be declared: celery, cereals containing gluten, crustaceans, eggs, fish, lupin, milk, molluscs, mustard, peanuts, sesame, soybeans, sulphur dioxide and sulphites, and tree nuts.",[11,29,30],{},"That list is the spine of every rule below. A supplier who cannot produce it against every item on a menu, on demand, is not ready for corporate catering.",[21,32,34],{"id":33},"natashas-law-and-ppds-food","Natasha's Law and PPDS food",[11,36,37,38,42,43,50],{},"Since 1 October 2021, food that is ",[39,40,41],"strong",{},"prepacked for direct sale"," (PPDS) must carry a full ingredients list with the 14 allergens emphasised in the list, typically in bold. ",[44,45,49],"a",{"href":46,"rel":47},"https:\u002F\u002Fwww.gov.uk\u002Fgovernment\u002Fpublications\u002Fintroduction-to-allergen-labelling-for-ppds-food",[48],"nofollow","The FSA's guidance"," applies in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.",[11,52,53],{},"PPDS is the category that catches office catering, and the definition is the bit people get wrong. Food is PPDS when it is packaged at the same premises from which it is sold, before the customer orders it. The sandwich made in the morning and stacked in a fridge is PPDS. The salad box assembled at 9am for a 12:30 delivery is PPDS. A boxed meal made to order after the customer has chosen it is not, and a shared platter served loose is not either. Different rules apply to those, which is the next section.",[11,55,56],{},"Labels need to be legible: the FSA sets a minimum 1.2mm x-height, dropping to 0.9mm on packaging smaller than 80cm². Handwritten labels are lawful if legible and correctly emphasised, though the FSA does not recommend them because the error rate is higher.",[11,58,59],{},"The law binds the food business, not your company. But the practical consequence lands on your desk: if a supplier turns up with unlabelled boxes, the person distributing them in your office becomes the last line of defence.",[21,61,63],{"id":62},"non-prepacked-food-and-the-march-2025-guidance","Non-prepacked food and the March 2025 guidance",[11,65,66],{},"Loose food, buffet trays, platters and made-to-order boxes fall outside Natasha's Law. Allergen information still has to be provided, but historically it could be given verbally, which is exactly how information gets lost between a kitchen, a courier, a reception desk and a hungry meeting room.",[11,68,69,70,75,76,79],{},"That changed in practice on 5 March 2025, when ",[44,71,74],{"href":72,"rel":73},"https:\u002F\u002Fwww.food.gov.uk\u002Fnews-alerts\u002Fnews\u002Fupdated-industry-guidance-issued-for-food-allergen-information-in-the-out-of-home-sector",[48],"the FSA published best practice guidance"," for the out-of-home sector. Its central recommendation: written allergen information should ",[39,77,78],{},"always"," be available for non-prepacked food, alongside a conversation with the customer about their requirements. Printed menus, allergen charts, posters or a digital equivalent all qualify.",[11,81,82],{},"It is guidance, not law, and the Government has said it will evaluate uptake from spring 2026 before deciding whether to legislate. Two things follow for a corporate buyer. First, \"we tell your office manager on the phone\" is now below the published standard of care. Second, if legislation follows, suppliers who already do this will not need to change anything, and suppliers who do not will be scrambling.",[21,84,86],{"id":85},"may-contain-is-not-a-shrug","\"May contain\" is not a shrug",[11,88,89],{},"Precautionary allergen labelling, the familiar \"may contain nuts\", is voluntary. It is meant to communicate a genuine, assessed cross-contamination risk that cannot be designed out of the kitchen.",[11,91,92],{},"Used properly it is useful information. Used as blanket legal cover on every item, it becomes noise, and the practical effect is that allergic employees stop trusting any of it and stop ordering. If a supplier's entire menu says \"may contain\" everything, they have not done a risk assessment; they have bought an insurance policy at your colleagues' expense.",[11,94,95],{},"The right question is not whether the warning is present. It is whether the supplier can explain the assessment behind it.",[11,97,98],{},[99,100],"img",{"alt":101,"src":102},"A catering spread with clearly labelled individual dishes","\u002Fimages\u002Fphotos\u002Fcatering-spread.webp",[21,104,106],{"id":105},"where-office-catering-goes-wrong","Where office catering goes wrong",[11,108,109],{},"Four failure patterns come up repeatedly, and none of them are exotic.",[11,111,112,115],{},[39,113,114],{},"The platter problem."," Shared trays are the hardest format to make safe. Serving utensils migrate between dishes, guests handle food, and by the second sitting the gluten-free corner is no longer gluten-free. Individually boxed meals eliminate the entire category of risk, which is a stronger argument for boxed formats than any cost calculation.",[11,117,118,121],{},[39,119,120],{},"The relabelled reheat."," A caterer buys in a component, decants it, and produces a label from their own recipe card rather than the supplier's specification. The allergen list is now a copy of a copy.",[11,123,124,127],{},[39,125,126],{},"The substitution nobody flagged."," A kitchen runs out of an ingredient at 11am and substitutes. The label printed at 9am is now wrong. Good suppliers have a rule that a substitution triggers a relabel, or the item does not go out.",[11,129,130,133],{},[39,131,132],{},"The multi-vendor drop."," Four different caterers deliver to one meeting, each with a different labelling standard, and the person laying the table reconciles them by eye. This is the single most common corporate scenario and the least defensible.",[21,135,137],{"id":136},"what-to-ask-a-supplier","What to ask a supplier",[11,139,140],{},"Nine questions. Any provider running a serious operation answers all of them without pausing.",[142,143,144,148,151,154,157,160,163,166,169],"ol",{},[145,146,147],"li",{},"What is your FSA food hygiene rating, at each site fulfilling our orders?",[145,149,150],{},"Do you operate a documented HACCP-based food safety management system?",[145,152,153],{},"Have you completed an allergen risk assessment for every menu item we can order?",[145,155,156],{},"Is every PPDS item labelled with a full ingredients list and the 14 allergens emphasised?",[145,158,159],{},"For non-prepacked and buffet items, is written allergen information supplied with every delivery?",[145,161,162],{},"What happens to labelling when you substitute an ingredient mid-service?",[145,164,165],{},"Can an employee filter for their allergen at the point of ordering, rather than asking someone?",[145,167,168],{},"Who is accountable when a mislabelled item reaches our building, and what is the escalation route?",[145,170,171],{},"Can you produce your allergen documentation for an audit, and will you commission a UKAS-accredited audit report if we ask?",[11,173,174],{},"Question 7 is the one that separates a platform from a caterer. If the filtering happens in the app, at the moment the employee chooses, nobody in your office has to hold the allergen information in their head.",[21,176,178],{"id":177},"how-ordit-handles-it","How Ordit handles it",[11,180,181],{},"Ordit's requirements sit at the vetting stage rather than the apology stage. Every restaurant and caterer on the platform must hold a Food Standards Agency hygiene rating of at least 4 out of 5. Beyond that, partners are required to supply HACCP-based food safety management documentation, an allergen risk assessment, ingredient labelling, temperature-control logs, cleaning schedules, pest-control records, staff training records, supplier approval documents and local authority registration. Where a partner cannot provide a UKAS-accredited audit report, Ordit asks them to commission one.",[11,183,184],{},"Two operational details matter more than the paperwork:",[11,186,187,190],{},[39,188,189],{},"Individual ordering removes the intermediary."," When each employee orders their own meal from the full menu, with dietary filtering applied at the point of choice, no colleague is guessing on anyone's behalf. The allergic employee makes their own decision with the same information a restaurant would give them directly.",[11,192,193,196,197,201],{},[39,194,195],{},"Individually boxed and labelled delivery."," ",[44,198,200],{"href":199},"\u002Fgroup-orders","Group orders"," arrive as separate labelled meals for named people, not as trays to be divided. The cross-contamination surface of a shared platter simply does not exist.",[11,203,204,205,209],{},"For catering formats where platters genuinely suit the occasion, the answer is not to pretend the risk is absent but to order parallel dishes with dedicated service equipment and written allergen sheets, which is what ",[44,206,208],{"href":207},"\u002Fcatering","Ordit's catering team"," sets up for larger events.",[21,211,213],{"id":212},"frequently-asked-questions","Frequently asked questions",[11,215,216,219],{},[39,217,218],{},"Does Natasha's Law apply to food delivered to our office?"," It applies to the food business preparing and packaging it, for food that is prepacked for direct sale. Boxed meals prepared in advance are the common case in office catering. Made-to-order and loose buffet items fall under the non-prepacked rules instead, where the FSA's March 2025 written-information guidance applies.",[11,221,222,225],{},[39,223,224],{},"Is our company liable if an employee has a reaction?"," Food safety law binds the food business. Your employer duties are separate and general: a safe workplace, and reasonable care in what you arrange for staff. In practice, choosing suppliers who meet the standard and keeping the documentation is both the safe answer and the defensible one.",[11,227,228,231],{},[39,229,230],{},"Do we need to collect employees' allergy information?"," Only if you are ordering on their behalf, and health data is special category data under UK GDPR, so it needs a lawful basis and proper handling. The cleaner design is to let employees select for themselves at the point of ordering, so the company never holds the data at all.",[11,233,234,237,238,242],{},[39,235,236],{},"What about religious and ethical requirements like halal or kosher?"," Those are not allergens and are not covered by this legislation, but the operational answer is the same: verified supplier information, and individual choice rather than a colleague's best guess. ",[44,239,241],{"href":240},"\u002Fblog\u002Fdietary-diversity-inclusive-workplace-food-programme-london","Dietary diversity in London offices"," covers the wider picture.",[244,245],"hr",{},[11,247,248,249,253,254,258],{},"The practical version of all this: reduce the number of people who have to make an allergen decision on someone else's behalf to zero. Everything else is documentation. For how the ordering mechanics work, see ",[44,250,252],{"href":251},"\u002Findividual-ordering","individual ordering","; for choosing between suppliers on this and eleven other criteria, see ",[44,255,257],{"href":256},"\u002Fblog\u002Fhow-to-choose-office-catering-company-london","how to choose an office catering company in London",".",[11,260,261],{},[262,263,264],"em",{},"This article is general guidance for UK employers, current as of August 2026. It is not legal advice. Allergen law is enforced by local authorities and the position can change; check the FSA's current guidance before relying on it.",{"title":266,"searchDepth":267,"depth":267,"links":268},"",2,[269,270,271,272,273,274,275,276],{"id":23,"depth":267,"text":24},{"id":33,"depth":267,"text":34},{"id":62,"depth":267,"text":63},{"id":85,"depth":267,"text":86},{"id":105,"depth":267,"text":106},{"id":136,"depth":267,"text":137},{"id":177,"depth":267,"text":178},{"id":212,"depth":267,"text":213},"Compliance & Integration","2026-08-11","Natasha's Law, the 14 allergens and the FSA's 2025 written-information guidance, explained for the person who actually orders the office lunch.","md",false,"\u002Fimages\u002Fphotos\u002Fcatering-buffet.jpg",{},true,"\u002Fblog\u002Fallergen-labelling-office-catering-uk",9,{"title":5,"description":279},"blog\u002Fallergen-labelling-office-catering-uk",[290,291,292],"Food Safety","Tax & Compliance","Office Catering","8goTcEixgqJuLFphP62pFbob0utDn-lhfFN2YMiC-Y8",[295,306,316],{"path":296,"stem":297,"title":298,"description":299,"image":300,"tags":301,"date":304,"readTime":305},"\u002Fblog\u002Foffice-christmas-party-food-150-exemption-uk","blog\u002Foffice-christmas-party-food-150-exemption-uk","The £150 Rule: Office Parties and Seasonal Food, Done Properly","How the £150 annual functions exemption really works: what counts, what breaks it, the cliff edge that catches employers, and how to plan the festive season.","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Fteam-celebration.jpg",[291,302,303],"Office Food","Team Culture","2026-08-14",8,{"path":307,"stem":308,"title":309,"description":310,"image":311,"tags":312,"date":315,"readTime":286},"\u002Fblog\u002Femployee-meal-benefits-tax-guide-uk","blog\u002Femployee-meal-benefits-tax-guide-uk","The UK Employee Meal Benefits Tax Guide for 2026","How employee meal benefits are taxed in the UK: the canteen exemption, trivial benefits, salary sacrifice rules, PSAs, and a worked 100-person example.","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Fworkplace-trends-report.jpg",[291,313,314],"Meal Programmes","UK","2026-06-12",{"path":317,"stem":318,"title":319,"description":320,"image":321,"tags":322,"date":315,"readTime":325},"\u002Fblog\u002Foffice-catering-london-complete-guide","blog\u002Foffice-catering-london-complete-guide","Office Catering in London — The Complete Guide","Every office catering option in London compared: types, pricing by area, how to choose a provider, and why platforms are replacing traditional caterers.","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Fgroup-lunch-ordering.jpg",[292,323,324],"London","Provider Comparison",12,1787926237064]