Allergen Matrix Builder

What it is

The Allergen Matrix Builder turns your menu into the document every EHO expects to see: a clear grid of dishes down the side, the 14 regulated allergens across the top, and a tick wherever a dish contains one. Add your dishes, tap the grid, and print an A4 landscape matrix with your business name on it.

It covers the full set of allergens UK law requires food businesses to declare: celery, cereals containing gluten, crustaceans, eggs, fish, lupin, milk, molluscs, mustard, tree nuts, peanuts, sesame, soya, and sulphur dioxide or sulphites. Your matrix saves in your own browser, so when the menu changes you can update a tick and reprint rather than starting again.

Why it matters

Since December 2014, the Food Information Regulations have required every UK food business to provide accurate information about any of the 14 regulated allergens used as ingredients — including for loose, non-prepacked food like restaurant meals and takeaway dishes. When a customer asks "is there sesame in this?", guessing is not an option: staff need a reliable, current source of truth, and a printed matrix by the pass or the till is the simplest form that takes.

It matters commercially as well as legally. Allergen control sits squarely inside the "confidence in management" pillar of your food hygiene rating, and an inaccurate or out-of-date matrix is worse than none at all — it turns an honest gap into documented misinformation.

Important to note: a matrix is a communication aid, not compliance in itself. It records what your dishes contain; it does not manage cross-contact from shared fryers, prep surfaces or storage, and it cannot substitute for trained staff and accurate ingredient knowledge. Treat it as the visible output of a working allergen system — not the system.

How to get the most from it

• Build it from ingredients lists, not memory. Check labels and specs for hidden allergens — soya in bread, celery in stock, mustard in dressings.
• Print one per menu. Breakfast, mains and specials each need their own accurate matrix, not one master sheet nobody trusts.
• Keep a copy at the pass and front of house. Staff should answer allergen questions from the matrix, never from memory.
• Date it. The printout carries its generated date — if a recipe or supplier changes, that date tells you it's stale.
• Walk new starters through it. Reading the matrix — and knowing its limits on cross-contact — belongs in every induction.

Keeping it current

An allergen matrix is only ever as good as its last review. Recipes evolve, suppliers substitute ingredients, and a "free-from" product can quietly stop being free-from between deliveries. The businesses that get caught out are rarely the ones with no allergen information — they're the ones whose information was right six months ago.

Make a review trigger, not a review date: any recipe change, any supplier change, any substitution in a delivery means the matrix gets checked before the dish is next served. For a small operation, the reprint takes two minutes. For larger or multi-site operations, where you also need to prove the information was current on a given day, a printed sheet starts to hit its limits — that's the point where documented review records and a managed allergen system earn their keep.

Frequently asked questions

Ready to go further than a matrix?

A matrix records the answers; accredited training makes sure your team knows the questions. These two courses are EHO-approved, accredited by Qualifi and CPD UK, and online with an instant certificate — and yes, allergen matrix systems are on the Level 2 syllabus.