A caterer serves hundreds of guests it never meets. Among them are a few people for whom a trace of peanut, milk or sesame is not a preference but a danger. Allergens are therefore not managed “in the kitchen”: they are managed across the whole business, from the product sheet to the label stuck on the box. Here are the lists to know in Québec and in France, the places where errors happen, and a five-step method so that an allergen entered once follows the dish all the way through.
Why it is a business matter, not just a kitchen matter
An allergen error has three consequences, and none of them is small. The first is medical: a reaction can be serious. The second is commercial: daycares, schools, universities and corporate purchasing departments increasingly require proof that allergens are tracked, and an incident ends a contract. The third is legal: the caterer must be able to show what it declared, and when.
Conversely, visible tracking is reassuring. An online menu that shows allergens, a complete label, a production list where the client’s allergies appear under each dish: it is a sales argument as much as a protection.
The lists to know
In Canada. Health Canada defines a list of priority allergens: peanuts, tree nuts, sesame, milk, eggs, fish, crustaceans and molluscs, soy, wheat and triticale, mustard and sulphites, plus gluten sources. Prepackaged foods must declare them. For dishes prepared and served by a caterer, the requirement varies by product and context, but your clients expect the same information everywhere. The best practice is simple: declare the full list, for every dish, on every medium.
In France and the European Union. The INCO regulation requires the declaration of fourteen allergens: cereals containing gluten, crustaceans, eggs, fish, peanuts, soybeans, milk, tree nuts, celery, mustard, sesame, sulphites, lupin and molluscs. The obligation also applies to non-prepacked food, hence to restaurants and caterers: the information must be written and available to the client, for example on the menu, the quote or a sheet delivered with the order.
In both cases, the advice is the same: adopt your market’s official list as your internal list, and use exactly the same one everywhere, from the online store to the label. Two different lists is an error waiting to happen.
Where errors happen
Caterers who have been through an incident almost always tell the same story. The information existed; it did not follow.
- Re-entry. The allergy is noted over the phone, then copied into an email, then into a spreadsheet for the kitchen. Every copy is a chance to forget it.
- Composed dishes. A combo or a platter brings together several products. One component’s allergen is enough, and it is easy to miss the one the client picked at the last minute.
- Substitutions in the kitchen. A sauce replaced, a bread changed, and the planned label is no longer true.
- The hand-typed label. The dish name is right, the date is right, and the allergen line is yesterday’s dish.
- The declared allergy asleep in an email. The client gave notice. The message sits in one person’s inbox, not on the document the kitchen reads in the morning.
A five-step method
1. One list, entered once
Every product in your catalogue carries its allergens, ticked from the official list. That is the only entry. Name the person responsible for updating the sheet when a recipe or a supplier changes: a product sheet is only right if someone answers for it.
2. Composed dishes inherit from their components
A combo, a platter, a lunch box should never have its own allergen list typed separately. Its allergens are the sum of its components’, including those the client picks. If your tool does not do that calculation, you have to do it on every order, and that is where the error happens.
3. The order totals and alerts
When the order is confirmed, the summary must show the allergens of everything it contains, for the client and for your team alike. A visible alert on the order is worth more than a line lost in the notes.
4. Production sees everything, without copying
The kitchen works from lists by zone or by department. The client’s allergies and restrictions must appear there under each product concerned, generated from the order, never copied. An event’s BEO plays the same role: a prominent “Allergens and diets” section, with the number of portions per case.
5. The label comes out of the system
The label on each package repeats the allergens from the product sheet, printed in batches with the dish name and the date. Nobody types it. If the recipe changes, you fix the sheet, and the next label is right.
What about the allergy the client declares? It enters the circuit at order time, through a question asked in the online store or by the salesperson, and it follows the order through to production. Your contract or terms should state that the client declares allergies and diets before a given date; your system should make sure that, once declared, they never get lost.
What CM does for you
In Caterer Manager, you define your allergen list, and each product carries its own. CM totals them for combos and for every order, with an alert on the order. The online store shows them on every product and every combo, and shows the client the allergen summary of their order before payment. In the kitchen, the production lists by zone carry the “Allergies and dietary restrictions” line under each product, and the labels repeat the product’s allergens, printed in batches. An allergen entered once follows the dish all the way to the package, with no re-entry. In early 2027, the RMS will add recipe sheets with cost price and allergen management, linked to the production plan.
The checklist
- One allergen list, your market’s, reviewed once a year.
- One person responsible for product sheets, and one rule: every recipe change goes through the sheet.
- No separately typed allergen list for a composed dish.
- An allergen summary visible on every order, for the client and for the team.
- Production lists and labels that are generated, never copied.
- A monthly check: ten random products, the sheet compared with the actual recipe.
- One instruction for the team: when in doubt, check, don’t guess.
Allergens do not require more work. They require that the work be done once, in the right place, and that everything else follow.
