Allergens in Delivery: What the Law Requires

A customer orders pad thai from an app, ticks "no peanuts", and the courier brings a bag with no information about the ingredients. Who is responsible, and what does the law say about allergens when food travels to the customer? The answer is shorter than guides suggest: the EU regulation has a separate article for it.

Allergens in delivery mean two obligations at two moments: information before purchase and information at delivery. It is not enough that the menu in the venue is labelled.

The key points in brief

• Allergen information must be available before the purchase is finally made and at the moment of delivery. This follows from Art. 14 of Regulation 1169/2011.

• It applies to every distance channel: your own website, an app, a messenger and the telephone. The definition in Art. 2(2)(u) covers any way of concluding a contract without the simultaneous physical presence of the parties.

• Responsibility lies with the venue under whose name the dish is sold (Art. 8(1) and (2)). An intermediary platform does not automatically take this obligation off you.

• A breach of the requirements of Regulation 1169/2011 is punishable by a fine imposed by decision of the State Voivodeship Sanitary Inspector, up to 30 times the average salary.

• Just "ask the staff" does not fit delivery. A courier will not answer a question about celery, and an order placed in an app has nobody to ask.

What exactly Art. 14 says

Art. 14 of Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011 concerns distance selling. Its para. 2 refers directly to non-prepacked food, that is, dishes from a kitchen: the particulars required under Art. 44 are made available according to the rules in para. 1. And para. 1 requires two things:

• the information must be available before the purchase is finally made and appear in the material supporting the distance selling or be provided through other appropriate means clearly identified by the seller (point (a)),

• all mandatory particulars must be available at the moment of delivery (point (b)).

For foodservice, "the particulars required under Art. 44" means above all the allergens from Annex II: Art. 44(1)(a) makes the particulars from Art. 9(1)(c) mandatory. The other particulars from Art. 9 and 10 are mandatory only where a Member State has so decided (point (b)). In Poland, additional particulars for non-prepacked food are listed in the regulation of the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development (MRiRW) on the labelling of particular types of foodstuffs. Its § 19(1) lists, among others, the name and the list of ingredients, and how to apply this to restaurant dishes is assessed by the particular sanitary station, so it is worth asking your own. One of the poviat stations states directly in its communication that a restaurateur is to provide the full composition with allergens specified. In turn § 19(2) says that the information is given at the point of sale on a notice or in another way, in a place directly accessible to the consumer. That provision describes a stationary venue. For delivery you apply Art. 14 of Regulation 1169/2011, which applies directly.

The Ministry of Agriculture described this in its guide to Regulation 1169/2011, expressly for non-prepacked food sold at a distance: allergen information must be provided (a) before purchase and (b) at the moment of delivery. The guide has no legal status, but it shows how the authorities read the provision. We describe the general rules on allergens in the menu in the article how to label allergens in the menu.

Which ordering channels count

The definition of means of distance communication does not list specific tools. What counts is that the contract is concluded without the simultaneous physical presence of the seller and the customer. In foodservice practice:

• Your own website or app with a basket.

• Intermediary platforms in which the venue runs its panel and menu.

• Telephone orders and orders through a messenger. The lack of a form does not remove the obligation.

• An order from a QR code at the table is usually treated as a sale in the venue, because the customer is on the spot and sees the same menu as other guests. We found no binding interpretation on this, so it is safer to give allergens in the QR menu itself too. We discuss data issues with such a menu in the article on GDPR in QR menus and WhatsApp.

Who is responsible: the venue or the platform

Under Art. 8(1) of the regulation, the food information is the responsibility of the operator under whose name or business name the foodstuff is placed on the market. Para. 2 adds that this operator ensures the presence and accuracy of the information. For a dish from your kitchen, that is you. Only you know the data on ingredients and allergens.

The MRiRW guide adds that responsibility for providing the mandatory information before purchase in distance selling rests on the owner of the website. When you sell through a platform, this can therefore be a division of responsibility, not shifting it entirely. No provision we checked settles this for a specific contract with a specific platform. We also did not verify what fields and functions the panels of individual platforms have, because they change independently of the law. The practical rule is therefore simple: treat the data in the panel as your own statement to the customer and check it the same way as the menu in the venue.

Before purchase: how to make it visible

The provision requires information to be available before the final purchase. It does not impose a format, but the aim is clear: a customer with an allergy should see the data before paying.

1. By each dish, not in a separate document

Allergens entered by the menu item (a list or pictograms) work better than a link to a PDF at the bottom of the page. If the platform has an allergens field, fill it in for every item. If it does not, use the dish description.

2. Two sources from one table

Keep one main document with the allergens of dishes and update from it the menu in the venue, in the platform panel and on the website. Different versions in different places are the most common way for a customer to receive contradictory information. How to build such a document is shown in the article on the 14 allergens with examples of dishes.

3. Telephone orders: decide what the staff say

On the telephone there is no screen. The person taking the order should have the same table in front of them and give allergens from it, not from memory. The Commission Notice of 2017 allows oral communication, but "verifiable". Write down who takes such orders and how, and for an order with an allergy, note what was communicated.

At the moment of delivery: what should be in the bag

Point (b) of Art. 14(1) requires the mandatory particulars to be available at the time of delivery. For non-prepacked food this means allergens. There are several solutions, and the choice depends on scale:

• A sticker on the dish packaging with the list of allergens for that item.

• A printout of the order with an allergens column for each item, enclosed in the bag.

• An allergen card for the whole menu in the bag, if the menu is short.

The European Commission and the MRiRW allow information to be given in various forms, as long as it lets the customer make an informed choice. For delivery, however, it is worth opting for written form. The sanitary station mentioned above also states that informing only orally at the customer's request is not enough. A courier is not the person who is to pass on such information, and a customer receiving the bag has nobody to ask. We also discuss linking delivery with the label in the article on allergens in catering.

Where delivery most often fails

These are not requirements from the provisions, but places where a gap usually arises between what was declared and what left the kitchen.

• A recipe change without updating the panel. A new sauce, a different breading, a different pasta supplier. The menu in the venue is corrected, the entry in the app is from last quarter.

• Substitutes when something runs out. The cook replaces an ingredient and changes the allergen profile of the dish, and the customer does not know. A substitute containing an allergen requires information for the customer, or giving up the substitute.

• Customer notes in the order. A "no peanuts" field in the app does not replace a kitchen procedure. Someone has to read it, and the kitchen must know what to do with it, including how to avoid transfer of the allergen. We describe the rules in the article on allergen cross-contact.

• Dishes packed together. Sauces, sides and bread in one bag in an order with an allergy: separate packaging, clear labelling.

How to put this in your HACCP documentation

In a HACCP system, allergens are a hazard that you analyse in every process. Delivery adds to the analysis the stages after release from the kitchen: packing, labelling, handing over to the courier. We show an example of such an analysis for delivery in the article on the hazard analysis for delivery, and the requirements of chains and platforms from the documentation side in the article on the B2B audit and documentation for delivery. What to do when a reaction happens despite everything is described in the article on an allergic reaction in a restaurant.

What the law does not settle

• There is no provision that indicates a specific format for information at delivery (sticker, printout, card).

• There is no provision that divides responsibility between the venue and the platform. That is a matter of the contract and the circumstances.

• There is no provision requiring a register (record) of customer enquiries about allergens. A register helps prove diligence, but it is not an obligation.

Frequently asked questions

Does delivery have to have allergens labelled?

Yes. Non-prepacked food offered at a distance is subject to Art. 14 of Regulation 1169/2011 in conjunction with Art. 44: allergen information must be available before the final purchase and at the moment of delivery.

Is it enough that allergens are in the menu in the venue?

No. A customer ordering through an app, a website or the telephone does not see the menu from the venue. The information must reach them before purchase through the same channel they order through, and accompany the delivery.

Is the platform responsible, or the restaurant?

The operator under whose name the dish is sold is responsible for the information about the dish (Art. 8(1) and (2) of Regulation 1169/2011). In distance selling, the Ministry of Agriculture additionally names the owner of the website as responsible for providing the information before purchase. The division in a specific case depends on the contract.

Do telephone orders also fall under the rules on distance selling?

Yes. The definition of means of distance communication in Art. 2(2)(u) covers any way of concluding a contract without the simultaneous physical presence of the parties, so the telephone too.

What penalty applies for no allergen information at delivery?

Art. 103(1)(1b)(c) of the Act on Food and Nutrition Safety provides for a fine for failing to comply with the requirements of Regulation 1169/2011 on labelling, up to 30 times the average monthly salary. It is imposed by decision of the State Voivodeship Sanitary Inspector, taking into account the degree of harmfulness of the act, the degree of fault and the scope of the breach (Art. 104).

---

Legal status as of: 4 October 2026
Legal basis: Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011 (among others Art. 2(2)(u), Art. 8, Art. 9(1)(c), Art. 14, Art. 44); Act on Food and Nutrition Safety of 25 August 2006 (Art. 103(1)(1b)(c), Art. 104); Regulation of the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development of 23 December 2014 on the labelling of particular types of foodstuffs (Journal of Laws (Dz.U.) 2015, item 29, as amended, § 19(2)). Interpretative sources without legal force: Commission Notice 2017/C 428/01 (points 28-31) and the MRiRW guide to Regulation 1169/2011. We did not check the functions of the panels of specific delivery platforms, because they change independently of the provisions.
Last review: 4 October 2026