Food Allergy Symbols
The fourteen allergens declared in the UK and EU, the nine in the US, and the icons menus use for them. The important part first: those icons are a house convention, not a legal symbol set, so the ingredient text is the declaration.
There is no official allergen icon
No regulator publishes a mandatory icon set for allergens. What is mandated is words. Under Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011 and the UK rules that carried it across, an allergen must appear in the ingredient list and be emphasized, usually in bold or capitals. A wheat-ear picture on a menu carries no legal weight, and two restaurants on the same street can draw different pictures for the same allergen. Icons are navigation; the text is the record.
The fourteen declared in the UK and EU
| Allergen | Icon usually drawn | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Cereals containing gluten | An ear of wheat | Wheat, rye, barley, oats, spelt, kamut |
| Crustaceans | A prawn | Separate from molluscs below |
| Eggs | A cracked egg | Includes egg used as a glaze |
| Fish | A fish outline | Includes fish-derived sauces |
| Peanuts | A peanut in its shell | A legume, declared separately from nuts |
| Soybeans | A pod or bean | |
| Milk | A carton or a glass | Lactose and all dairy proteins |
| Nuts | An almond or generic nut | Almond, hazelnut, walnut, cashew, pecan, Brazil, pistachio, macadamia |
| Celery | A celery stalk | Includes celeriac and celery salt |
| Mustard | Seeds or a jar | |
| Sesame | Scattered seeds | |
| Sulfur dioxide and sulfites | The letters SO2, since no picture works | Declared above 10 mg/kg or 10 mg/litre |
| Lupin | A lupin flower | Turns up in gluten-free baking |
| Molluscs | A mussel or shell | Squid, oysters, mussels, snails |
The nine in the United States
FALCPA set eight major allergens: milk, eggs, fish, crustacean shellfish, tree nuts, peanuts, wheat and soybeans. The FASTER Act added sesame as the ninth, effective 1 January 2023. The declaration is text again, either in the ingredient list or in a Contains statement. Celery, mustard, lupin and molluscs are not major allergens there, so a US label read by a European customer is incomplete. Sulfites are declared at 10 ppm or more under separate rules.
A declared ingredient is not a may contain
A declared allergen is in the recipe. May contain, not suitable for, and made in a facility that also handles are precautionary labeling: voluntary, no threshold, applied at the manufacturer’s discretion. Its presence does not tell you how much. Its absence does not prove there was no cross-contact.
The UK rule for food prepacked on site
Since 1 October 2021, food packed on the premises where it is sold must carry a full ingredient list with allergens emphasized, the change usually called Natasha’s Law. It covers the sandwich made in the back and put in the chiller, not food cooked to order.
If you are building a menu or an icon sheet
- Print the word next to the icon. Never icon-only.
- Give every icon alternative text. A screen reader announces an unlabeled image as nothing, or reads the file name aloud.
- Do not use color alone to separate allergens.
- Keep a dated ingredient matrix behind the menu. The menu is a summary; the matrix is the record.
- The UK Food Standards Agency publishes free allergen guidance and chart templates for caterers.
See also gluten-free symbols, where a threshold does exist, and food symbols for the rest of the label.