allergen-record

---
name: allergen-record
description: Builds the kitchen-side allergen record behind your menu: every dish broken down to its ingredients, every ingredient tied to the supplier specification or label it was read from, and a trigger that tells you which dishes to re-check the day a supplier changes a recipe. Use when you can say what is in a dish but cannot show where that answer came from.
---

# The evidence behind every allergen answer your staff give

You give me your recipes in whatever form they exist: a chef's notebook, a spreadsheet, phone photos of the tubs on the shelf and the boxes in the dry store, a supplier PDF, the back of a mayonnaise bucket. You get back an ingredient register with a source recorded against every line, a recipe breakdown that goes down to the marinade and the dusting flour, a list of every ingredient whose allergen information you cannot currently evidence, and a change register that names which dishes to re-check the morning a supplier swaps a recipe. This is the kitchen-side record. The customer-facing dish by dish grid is a separate job and is built from this.

## What it does

1. **Start from the recipe, not the menu, and break every dish down to the last thing added to it.** A menu line says "chicken burger". The record needs the brioche bun, the burger sauce, the buttermilk marinade, the seasoned flour, the frying oil, the pickle and the slice of cheese. Sub-recipes get their own line and are referenced by every dish that uses them, so the burger sauce is documented once and changing it changes every dish at once. The Food Standards Agency's guidance puts allergen information "included in recipes or explanations of the dishes provided" and adds the sentence this whole skill exists to serve: "you need to consider the impact when recipes change." A record keyed to dishes rather than ingredients cannot do that, because nothing tells you which dishes to look at.

2. **Tie every bought-in ingredient to a document you actually hold, and record which one.** Against each ingredient goes the source of its allergen information: a supplier product specification sheet, a photograph of the ingredient label, or the original packaging retained in store. The FSA says allergen information should be "recorded on product specification sheets" and "included on ingredients labels and ingredients should be kept in original or labelled containers". Every ingredient line therefore carries a source type, a document reference, and the date it was read. An ingredient whose only source is "chef knows" is not evidenced and goes on the gaps list. That list is the most valuable page in the pack: it is the set of questions an environmental health officer will ask, and the set your staff are currently guessing at.

3. **Read the allergens off the source against the 14, and name them the way the law names them.** The FSA lists them as "celery, cereals containing gluten (such as wheat, rye, barley, and oats), crustaceans (such as prawns, crabs and lobsters), eggs, fish, lupin, milk, molluscs (such as mussels and oysters), mustard, peanuts, sesame, soybeans, sulphur dioxide and sulphites (if the sulphur dioxide and sulphites are at a concentration of more than ten parts per million), tree nuts (such as almonds, hazelnuts, walnuts, brazil nuts, cashews, pecans, pistachios and macadamia nuts)." Peanuts and tree nuts are two different entries and are never merged into "nuts". Cereals containing gluten is not the same statement as "wheat", so the record carries which cereal. Where a bought-in product declares an allergen I record it with the wording used on the label, rather than translating it.

4. **Capture processing aids and derivatives, which is where a correct-looking record usually goes wrong.** The declaration duty applies "whether for use as an ingredient or a processing aid", and the Food Information Regulations 2014 define the food it applies to as one in which an ingredient or processing aid "listed in Annex II, or derived from a substance or product listed in Annex II, has been used in its manufacture or preparation and that is still present in the finished product (even if in an altered form)". In a kitchen that means the flour used to stop dough sticking, the wheat in a soy sauce, the sulphites in a wine or a dried fruit, the mustard flour inside a seasoning blend, the milk in a caramel colouring. These get their own lines, separate from the headline ingredients, because they are the ones not in the chef's notebook.

5. **Record where cross contact can actually happen, and mark each one controlled or not.** The FSA's controls are the ordinary ones: "cleaning utensils before each usage, especially if they were used to prepare meals containing allergens", "washing hands thoroughly between preparing dishes", and "storing ingredients and prepared foods separately in closed and labelled containers". Against each dish I record the shared items that touch it: the fryer, the grill, the slicer, the mixer bowl, the pasta water, the ice cream scoop well, the flour bin. Each is marked controlled by a step that exists in your cleaning schedule, or not controlled. A shared fryer with no separate basket is controlled by nothing, and the record says so plainly rather than implying a clean that does not happen.

6. **Only then decide whether anything needs a precautionary statement, and name the allergen.** Precautionary allergen labelling is for the risk you found and cannot remove, not for covering a record you have not finished. GOV.UK: "If you've identified a risk of potential allergen cross-contamination which cannot be controlled, you should use precautionary allergen labelling (PAL) to warn consumers", with wording "such as 'may contain milk' or 'not suitable for people with a nut allergy'". It must not be used "as a substitute for food hygiene and safety practices", and "If you use PAL when no genuine risk to the consumer has been identified, you could be misleading consumers." It also says that where a supplier sends you precautionary information, "you should pass this on to the final consumers, unless your risk assessment supersedes that information". So every precautionary statement carries the uncontrolled risk from step 5 that it came from, and names the specific allergen. A blanket "may contain nuts" across the whole menu gets rejected by this skill.

7. **Build the change trigger, which is the part most records do not have.** For every bought-in ingredient the register holds the supplier, the product code, the pack size and a version stamp, which is the date you last read its specification or label. Three events fire a re-check: a delivery whose label wording differs from the version on record, a supplier notification, and the review date. When any fires, the register returns in one lookup every sub-recipe and every dish that ingredient reaches, and each is marked unverified until someone reads the new label and signs it. A supplier changing the mayonnaise to a blend containing mustard is not an unusual event, it is a Tuesday, and the only defence is knowing which twelve dishes contain it.

8. **Record who checked it, when, and when it is next checked, and write the staff line.** Every ingredient and dish line carries a checker and a date, because "the chef did it at some point" is not a record. Set a review interval and put the date on the front page. The FSA says "Food businesses must make sure that staff receive training on allergens", and this record is the thing they are trained on, so it names its own current version and where the staff copy lives. It also states in one line that nobody gives an allergen answer from memory: they read this document, or they get the person who can.

9. **Hand the finished record to the customer-facing job, and say which one it is.** For loose food the FSA is direct: "If you provide non-prepacked foods, you must supply allergen information for every item that contains any of the 14 allergens", given either as "full written allergen information on a menu, chalkboard or in an information pack" or "verbally, with a written notice placed in a clearly visible position explaining how your customers can obtain this information." If you go verbal, regulation 5 of the Food Information Regulations 2014 requires the operator to "indicate that details of that substance or product can be obtained by asking a member of staff", on a notice or menu readily discernible before the customer chooses. And anything packed on site to sell on site, a sandwich or a salad made and sold in the same place, needs "a label with a full ingredients list with allergenic ingredients emphasised within it". The record ends by stating which of these three applies to each part of your offer, and handing the dish by dish grid to the person building it.

## Then it checks

1. Every dish on the current menu appears, and every dish breaks down to named ingredients with no line reading "seasoning", "sauce", "dressing" or "marinade" left undefined.
2. Every ingredient line names its source type as supplier specification, label photograph, or retained packaging, with a document reference and the date it was read. Ingredients with no source appear on the gaps list and nowhere else.
3. Allergens are recorded using the 14 categories as the FSA names them, with peanuts and tree nuts separate, and the specific cereal named wherever cereals containing gluten is recorded.
4. Every dish has a cross contact line naming the shared equipment it touches, each marked controlled with the cleaning step that controls it, or not controlled.
5. Every precautionary statement names a specific allergen and cites the uncontrolled risk it came from. No statement exists that is not traceable to a line in check 4.
6. Every bought-in ingredient carries supplier, product code, version date and review date, and the register can return the full list of sub-recipes and dishes affected by any single ingredient.

Any check fails: name it, redo that step once. Failed twice: say what is wrong and stop.

## Rules
- Public information only.
- Never invent a fact, a number or a quote.
- Anything sent in someone's name says whose name it is.
- Never state an allergen for an ingredient that was not read from a supplier specification, an ingredient label or the retained packaging. An allergen answer produced from probability is the one output of this skill that could put somebody in hospital, and it would carry your kitchen's name on it.
- Never merge peanuts and tree nuts, never shorten cereals containing gluten to gluten free, and never record an allergen as absent because a dish has always been made without it. Absent means read and not declared, on a dated source.
- Never add a precautionary statement to close a gap. A "may contain" written because nobody checked is not a warning, it is a guess that removes the dish from a customer who could have eaten it, and GOV.UK says using it with no identified risk could be misleading consumers.
- Never let this record be the thing a customer is shown. It is the working kitchen evidence. The customer-facing information is built from it, checked separately, and is somebody's named responsibility.
- This output is a working document prepared for the owner's environmental health officer, food safety adviser or local authority to check before it is relied on. It records what your suppliers and recipes say. It is not legal advice, it does not certify any dish as safe for any individual, and it does not replace the allergen information you are required to give customers.

## Built from
- Food Standards Agency, "Allergen guidance for food businesses", https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/allergen-guidance-for-food-businesses/allergen-guidance-for-food-businesses, published 2 April 2020, last updated 17 July 2026, read 14 September 2026: the list of the 14 allergens used in step 3, the product specification sheet and labelled container requirement in step 2, the sentence about considering the impact when recipes change that shaped steps 1 and 7, the cross contact controls in step 5, the staff training duty in step 8, and the non-prepacked rules in step 9.
- Food Standards Agency, "Food allergen labelling and information requirements technical guidance", https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/food-allergen-labelling-and-information-requirements-technical-guidance/food-allergen-labelling-and-information-requirements-technical-guidance, published 23 August 2023, read 14 September 2026: the Annex II naming of the 14 allergens, and the rule that they are declared "whether for use as an ingredient or a processing aid", which is why step 4 gives processing aids their own lines.
- The Food Information Regulations 2014, SI 2014 No. 1855, regulation 5, https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2014/1855/regulation/5/made, read 14 September 2026: the definition of a relevant food as one where an Annex II ingredient or processing aid, "or derived from a substance or product listed in Annex II", is "still present in the finished product (even if in an altered form)", which sets the scope of step 4, and the requirement at 5(3) to indicate details "can be obtained by asking a member of staff" where information is given orally, used in step 9.
- GOV.UK, "Food labelling and packaging: Precautionary allergen labelling (PAL)", https://www.gov.uk/food-labelling-and-packaging/precautionary-allergen-labelling-pal, no publication date shown on the page, read 14 September 2026: that PAL is for a risk "which cannot be controlled", must not be used "as a substitute for food hygiene and safety practices", and that misuse "could be misleading consumers". This shaped step 6 and the third rule.
- GOV.UK, "Understanding food labelling: Allergen labelling", https://www.gov.uk/understanding-food-labelling/allergen-labelling, no publication date shown on the page, read 14 September 2026: that businesses "must give you allergen information for any loose item you buy that contains any of the 14 allergens", and that "Allergens must also be clearly labelled within the ingredients list of PPDS food or drink", the plain wording used in step 9.
- Food Standards Agency, Safer food, better business, "Safe method: Clear and clean as you go", https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/69c52ce7471d520038d0f6c0/sfbb-indian-cuisines-clean-clear-as-you-go_0.pdf, pack published 29 January 2020, read 14 September 2026: the warning to "check if allergen information is on the inner packaging before disposing of the outer packaging", which is why step 2 accepts retained packaging as a source and asks for it to be kept.

# Kitchen allergen record builder

## You are given
A folder of inputs from a UK hospitality business: recipes in any form, photos of ingredient labels and dry store packaging, supplier specification PDFs, a current menu, and optionally a list of shared equipment (fryers, slicers, grills, mixers).

The 14 UK allergens, to be used exactly as spelled here and never merged:
`celery`, `cereals containing gluten`, `crustaceans`, `eggs`, `fish`, `lupin`, `milk`, `molluscs`, `mustard`, `peanuts`, `sesame`, `soybeans`, `sulphur dioxide and sulphites`, `tree nuts`.

## Produce
Write into `output/` in the working directory:

1. `ingredient-register.csv` - one row per bought-in ingredient or sub-recipe component. Columns exactly, in this order:
`ingredient_id,ingredient_name,supplier,product_code,pack_size,source_type,source_reference,source_read_date,allergens_declared,allergen_wording_as_printed,is_processing_aid,review_date,checked_by`
 - `source_type` is one of `supplier specification`, `label photograph`, `retained packaging`, or `NOT EVIDENCED`.
 - `allergens_declared` is a `;`-separated subset of the 14 names above, or `none declared`. For `cereals containing gluten` append the cereal in brackets, e.g. `cereals containing gluten (wheat)`.
 - `allergen_wording_as_printed` is the exact text read from the source, or empty.
2. `recipe-breakdown.csv` - columns: `dish,component,sub_recipe_id,ingredient_id,quantity,notes`. Sub-recipes appear once and are referenced by every dish that uses them.
3. `cross-contact.csv` - columns: `dish,shared_item,allergen_at_risk,controlled,control_step`. `controlled` is `yes` or `no`. If `no`, `control_step` is empty.
4. `precautionary-statements.csv` - columns: `dish,statement,allergen_named,source_risk_row`. One row only for each `cross-contact.csv` row where `controlled` is `no`, or where a supplier sent precautionary information.
5. `gaps.md` - a numbered list of every ingredient whose `source_type` is `NOT EVIDENCED`, every ingredient with no review date, and every dish containing an unevidenced ingredient, saying for each what document the owner must obtain.
6. `change-trigger.csv` - columns: `ingredient_id,supplier,product_code,version_date,affected_sub_recipes,affected_dishes`. Built by joining the register to the breakdown.

## Rules
- Never write an allergen that was not read from a source in the inputs. If unknown, set `source_type` to `NOT EVIDENCED`, leave `allergens_declared` empty and add the row to `gaps.md`.
- Never merge `peanuts` and `tree nuts`. Never write `gluten free`, `nut free` or `allergen free` anywhere.
- Never write `none declared` unless a source was actually read and declared nothing. Absent means read, not assumed.
- Never invent a precautionary statement to cover a gap. Every row in `precautionary-statements.csv` must cite a `source_risk_row`.
- British English. Use `£` if any cost appears. No em dash characters anywhere in any output.
- Put this line at the top of `gaps.md` and as a final comment row in each CSV: "Working document prepared for the owner's environmental health officer or food safety adviser to check. Not legal advice and not customer-facing."

## Return
Print the six file paths, the number of ingredient rows, how many are `NOT EVIDENCED`, the number of dishes covered, the count of uncontrolled cross-contact rows, and the number of entries in `gaps.md`. Nothing else.