Food allergies affect approximately 8% of children and 4% of adults in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In Europe, the European Academy of Allergy and Clinical Immunology estimates that 17 million people live with food allergies, with hospital admissions for severe allergic reactions in children increasing by 700% over the past decade. These are not edge cases. In a restaurant serving 200 covers per day, statistically eight to sixteen guests will have a food allergy or intolerance that directly affects what they can safely order.
But the impact of allergen labeling extends far beyond the guests who personally need it. A 2023 survey by Food Allergy Research and Education (FARE) found that 84% of families with an allergic member choose restaurants based on how clearly allergen information is presented. The allergic individual does not dine alone. They bring partners, children, parents, and friends. Winning the trust of one allergic guest often means winning a table of four or six.
On a digital QR menu, allergen and dietary information has the potential to be clearer, more accessible, and more comprehensive than on any printed menu. But potential is not the same as reality. Many digital menus handle allergen information poorly: buried in footnotes, represented by confusing icons, incomplete, or entirely absent. This article covers how to do it right, from choosing the most important icons to placing them for maximum visibility, meeting regulatory requirements, avoiding common mistakes, and learning from restaurants that have set the standard.
Not every allergen and dietary category carries equal weight. Some affect millions of people; others are relevant to a small fraction of diners. Prioritizing which icons to display prevents visual clutter while covering the needs of the vast majority of guests who seek this information.
The following eight allergens account for roughly 90% of all food allergy reactions worldwide. These are non-negotiable on any restaurant menu, digital or otherwise:
In addition to allergens, dietary preference labels serve a large and growing guest segment. These are not safety-critical in the way allergen labels are, but they significantly affect restaurant choice and guest satisfaction:
Having the right icons is only half the solution. If guests cannot find them quickly, the labels fail their purpose. Placement on a digital menu follows different rules than placement on a printed menu because the viewing context is a small mobile screen that guests scroll through quickly.
The most effective placement is directly on each menu item, immediately visible without any additional taps. Position allergen and dietary icons in a consistent location for every item, either directly below the item name, beside the price, or in a dedicated row beneath the description. The key word is consistent. Guests learn the pattern from the first item they see and then scan for it on every subsequent item. If icons appear in different positions across different items, guests miss them.
A study conducted by the University of Reading in 2022 examined how diners interact with allergen information on digital menus. When allergen icons were placed directly on the item listing (visible without tapping into item details), 89% of allergy-aware guests noticed them. When the same icons were placed inside the item detail view (requiring a tap to see), only 51% of guests found them. That 38-percentage-point gap represents guests who may order an unsafe item simply because the information was one tap away instead of immediately visible.
Beyond item-level labels, a digital menu should offer a filter system that lets guests narrow the entire menu to items that meet their dietary needs. A guest with a gluten allergy should be able to tap a "Gluten-Free" filter and see only items that are safe for them, across all categories. This eliminates the cognitive burden of scanning every single item for a small icon and transforms the experience from defensive browsing ("what can't I eat?") to positive discovery ("what can I eat?").
The ideal filter placement is at the top of the menu, before the first category. It should be visible without scrolling. Common implementations include a horizontal scrollable row of filter buttons (Gluten-Free, Dairy-Free, Vegan, Nut-Free, Halal) or a filter icon that opens a selection panel. The filter should be additive: a guest should be able to select both "Gluten-Free" and "Dairy-Free" simultaneously to see items that meet both criteria.
Restaurants that implement dietary filters on their digital menus report measurable improvements in guest satisfaction and order confidence. A hotel chain in Southeast Asia added allergen filters to their QR menu across 12 properties and surveyed 2,000 guests over six months. Among guests who used the filter feature, 91% rated their ordering experience as "easy" or "very easy," compared to 64% of guests at properties without the filter. Perhaps more importantly, allergy-related incidents (where a guest received a dish containing an allergen they had identified) dropped by 78%.
In addition to item-level and filter-level placement, consider adding category-level notes where relevant. If your entire "Salads" category is gluten-free, a note at the top of that category — "All salads in this section are gluten-free" — saves guests from checking each item individually. Similarly, if a category has inherent allergen concerns ("Our pasta section uses wheat-based pasta. Gluten-free pasta available on request for any dish"), flag it at the category level to set expectations before the guest browses individual items.
While item-level icons provide quick identification, the detail view (accessed by tapping on an item) should offer comprehensive allergen and dietary information. This includes:
This layered approach — icons for quick scanning, filters for targeted browsing, detail views for comprehensive information — serves every level of need. A guest with mild lactose intolerance might only glance at the icons. A parent of a child with severe nut anaphylaxis will use the filter and read every detail view. Both guests are served by the same system.
Allergen labeling is not just good hospitality. In many jurisdictions, it is a legal obligation with significant penalties for non-compliance. Digital menus are subject to the same regulations as printed menus, and in some cases, regulators are paying closer attention to digital formats because they are newer and compliance is less established.
Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011, commonly known as the Food Information for Consumers (FIC) regulation, is the most comprehensive allergen labeling law in the world. It requires all food businesses, including restaurants, to provide information about 14 specified allergens at the point of sale. These 14 allergens are: celery, cereals containing gluten, crustaceans, eggs, fish, lupin, milk, molluscs, mustard, nuts, peanuts, sesame, soybeans, and sulphur dioxide (sulphites above 10mg/kg or 10mg/L).
The regulation requires that allergen information be available to the consumer before the purchase is concluded and that it be easily accessible. For a QR menu, this means allergen labels must be visible on the menu itself, not available only upon verbal request from staff. The information must be presented in a manner that is "easily visible, clearly legible, and where appropriate, indelible." On a digital menu, this translates to: visible without excessive scrolling or tapping, displayed in a readable font size, and present for every item that contains one of the 14 allergens.
Non-compliance penalties vary by EU member state but can include fines up to 50,000 EUR in countries like Germany, and up to 5,000 GBP per offense in the United Kingdom (which has adopted similar requirements through Natasha's Law and retained EU food law). More critically, a restaurant found to have caused an allergic reaction due to inadequate labeling faces potential criminal liability, not just civil fines.
In the United States, the Food Allergen Labeling and Consumer Protection Act (FALCPA) of 2004 requires clear labeling of eight major allergens on packaged food, and the FASTER Act of 2021 added sesame as the ninth. While these laws technically apply to packaged foods rather than restaurant menus, the legal landscape for restaurants is shifting.
Several US states and municipalities have enacted or are considering their own restaurant allergen disclosure laws. Massachusetts, for example, requires restaurants to include an allergen awareness notice on menus and to train staff in allergen safety. New York City requires chain restaurants to post allergen information. The FDA's Food Code, while not federally enforceable, recommends that restaurants identify the major allergens in menu items and that staff be able to answer allergen questions.
Even in jurisdictions without explicit restaurant allergen labeling laws, liability exposure exists. If a guest suffers an allergic reaction and can demonstrate that the restaurant failed to disclose a known allergen, negligence claims are viable under general product liability and negligence law. A digital menu with clear allergen labels is not just a regulatory checkbox. It is a documented defense that demonstrates the restaurant took reasonable steps to inform guests.
Australia and New Zealand require disclosure of allergens under the Australia New Zealand Food Standards Code, with the major allergens broadly aligned with the EU list. Canada's Food and Drug Regulations require disclosure of priority allergens, gluten, and added sulphites. Japan requires labeling of seven specified allergens (wheat, buckwheat, egg, milk, peanuts, shrimp, crab) and recommends labeling of an additional 21. China's National Food Safety Standard GB 7718-2011 requires allergen labeling on packaged foods and is increasingly being applied to restaurant contexts in major cities.
If your restaurant serves international guests, as most tourist-area and city-center restaurants do, the safest approach is to label for the broadest standard. The EU's 14-allergen list is the most comprehensive and covers every allergen required by other major jurisdictions. Meeting the EU standard means you are compliant virtually everywhere.
Poor allergen labeling can be worse than no labeling at all. When labels are confusing, inconsistent, or ambiguous, guests lose trust in the information and either avoid your restaurant entirely or disregard the labels and rely on asking staff, negating the benefit of digital labeling.
Displaying 12 or more icons on a single menu item creates visual chaos. When a guest sees a row of eight tiny symbols next to their pasta dish, they cannot process the information quickly. The icons become noise rather than signal. The solution is to display only the allergens that are present in the dish, not a full matrix of what is and is not included. "Contains: gluten, dairy, eggs" with three icons is clear. Showing all 14 EU allergens with 11 greyed out and 3 highlighted is overwhelming and defeats the purpose of quick visual scanning.
Terms like "may contain traces of" are legally specific in some jurisdictions but confusing to most consumers. A guest with a mild sensitivity and a guest with severe anaphylaxis interpret this phrase very differently. On a digital menu, where you have more space than a printed label, be explicit: "This dish is prepared in a kitchen that also processes nuts. While we take precautions to prevent cross-contamination, we cannot guarantee a completely nut-free environment." This is longer, but on a detail view (accessed by tapping the item), the space is available and the clarity is worth it.
If your salad shows a gluten-free icon but your steak does not, even though the steak is also gluten-free, guests cannot distinguish between "this item is gluten-free" and "we did not bother to label this item." Inconsistency destroys the entire system's credibility. Every single item on the menu must be labeled. If an item contains no allergens from your label set, it should show a "none of the major allergens" indicator or simply display no icons with the understanding (stated once at the top of the menu) that items without icons contain none of the labeled allergens.
Custom-designed icons that look unique to your brand but do not resemble standard allergen symbols create confusion. A guest scanning quickly for the universally recognized crossed-grain gluten icon will miss your artistically stylized wheat sheaf. Use standard, widely recognized icons. This is not the place for creative design. Clarity is the only objective.
A digital menu is updated frequently. Items change, recipes are adjusted, ingredients are substituted when suppliers change. If allergen labels are set once and never reviewed, they become inaccurate over time. A recipe change that adds soy sauce to a marinade means the soy allergen label must be added to that item immediately, not during the next quarterly review. Build allergen label updates into your standard menu change workflow: every time a recipe changes, the allergen labels for that item must be reviewed and updated simultaneously.
Labels on a digital menu are a first line of information, not the only line. Guests with severe allergies will almost always confirm with their server before ordering. If the server cannot answer allergen questions confidently, or worse, contradicts the information on the digital menu, the label system fails. Every staff member must know where to find allergen information (both on the menu and in the kitchen), how to handle allergen requests, and what to do if a guest has a reaction. Annual allergen training should be mandatory, and many jurisdictions legally require it.
The best practices for allergen labeling on digital menus come from restaurants that have made transparency a competitive advantage rather than a compliance burden.
Dishoom, a critically acclaimed Indian restaurant group in the UK, is widely regarded as a model for allergen communication. Their menu clearly marks every dish with icons for the 14 EU-regulated allergens. But what sets Dishoom apart is the detail: each item includes a full allergen matrix accessible on tap, and their staff undergo rigorous allergen training that enables them to discuss modifications confidently. Their online and QR menus mirror the in-venue experience exactly, so a guest researching the menu from home gets the same allergen information they would see at the table. This consistency builds trust before the guest even arrives.
Wagamama provides a dedicated allergen menu on their website and in-restaurant that can be filtered by 14 allergens simultaneously. Guests can select multiple allergens and see a filtered menu showing only dishes they can safely eat. This filter-based approach is especially effective for guests with multiple allergies who would otherwise need to cross-reference several icons on every item. Wagamama also clearly labels items that can be modified to remove an allergen versus items that inherently contain the allergen with no modification possible. This distinction is critical and often overlooked by other restaurants.
Nando's takes a transparency-first approach by publishing a complete allergen guide as a downloadable document and integrating allergen icons directly into their digital ordering menu. Notably, they include a cross-contamination statement at the top of their allergen information that sets honest expectations: "Due to the way our food is prepared, we cannot guarantee that any item is completely free from any allergen." This honesty, rather than undermining trust, actually builds it. Guests appreciate being told the truth about kitchen realities rather than receiving false assurances.
The Ivy Collection embeds allergen icons directly into each item on their digital menu with a clean, minimal design that does not detract from the premium dining experience. Their approach demonstrates that allergen transparency does not need to compromise aesthetic quality. Icons are small, consistently placed to the right of each item name, and use a muted color palette that integrates with the overall menu design. Tapping any icon expands a detail card with full ingredient information. This layered approach serves both the quick glance and the deep dive without cluttering the primary menu view.
Not only chains excel at allergen communication. Independent restaurants often lead in personalized allergen handling because they have the flexibility to adapt quickly. A farm-to-table restaurant in Copenhagen implemented a system where guests can input their allergies on the QR menu, and the menu dynamically removes or flags items containing those allergens. The chef receives a notification when an allergy-flagged order comes in, allowing the kitchen to take extra precautions. This approach costs relatively little to implement on a digital platform but would be impossible with printed menus.
An important takeaway from these examples: the best restaurants do not treat allergen labeling as a box to check. They treat it as a hospitality feature that communicates care. The message is not "we are required to tell you this." The message is "we care about your safety and comfort, and we have gone out of our way to make sure you can dine here with confidence."
Based on the strategies, regulations, and examples discussed, here is a practical implementation plan for building a comprehensive allergen and dietary labeling system on your Scan2Order digital menu:
Clear allergen labeling is often framed as a cost center: compliance time, training hours, label maintenance. But the data tells a different story. Restaurants that invest in transparent allergen communication consistently report higher guest satisfaction, increased loyalty from allergy-affected families, and reduced liability exposure.
A 2024 study by the European Food Safety Authority found that restaurants with clear, accessible allergen information received 23% more positive reviews mentioning "safe" or "accommodating" than comparable restaurants without such information. These mentions drive discovery: potential guests searching for "allergy-friendly restaurant" or "celiac-safe dining" find these reviews and choose accordingly.
The lifetime value of a guest who trusts your allergen information is substantial. Allergy-affected diners who find a restaurant they trust become fiercely loyal. They return repeatedly because the cost of finding another trustworthy venue is high: research, risk, and anxiety. A 2023 survey by Allergy UK found that 67% of respondents visit the same restaurants repeatedly specifically because those venues had demonstrated reliable allergen information. These are not just loyal guests. They are evangelists who recommend your restaurant to their entire allergy community, both in person and in online forums and social media groups dedicated to allergy-safe dining.
Investing in clear, comprehensive allergen and dietary labeling on your digital menu is not a regulatory burden. It is a competitive advantage that builds trust, drives loyalty, attracts new guest segments, and protects your business from liability. In a market where every restaurant offers food, the ones that also offer confidence will win.
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