Catering Apr 2026 10 min read

Allergen Management Software for UK Caterers: Natasha's Law and What Your System Needs to Track

Natasha Ednan-Laperouse died aged 15 after eating a baguette containing sesame that was not listed on the packaging. The law that bears her name has been in force since October 2021, but many caterers still track allergens in spreadsheets, recipe cards, and verbal instructions. The March 2025 expansion added new requirements for non-prepacked food. This guide covers what UK law requires, where caterers are most at risk, and how allergen tracking should work in practice.

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What UK law requires from caterers

There are two distinct obligations under UK food allergen law, and caterers need to understand both.

Natasha's Law: PPDS labelling (from October 2021)

Food that is prepacked for direct sale (PPDS) must carry a label showing the name of the food, a full ingredients list in descending order of weight, and all 14 major allergens present, clearly emphasised (bold, capitalised, or underlined). PPDS means food that is packed on the same premises from which it is sold or supplied, before the customer orders or selects it.

For caterers, PPDS catches more products than many realise. Boxed lunches assembled in the kitchen before the client orders. Individually wrapped sandwiches in a display. Pre-portioned desserts in sealed containers. Labelled meal trays for corporate deliveries. If food is sealed or wrapped before the customer selects it, and the customer cannot alter the contents, it is PPDS and must be fully labelled.

Non-prepacked food: the March 2025 expansion

From March 2025, guidance was strengthened for non-prepacked food (buffet platters, open food displays, food served directly to the customer). Providers of non-prepacked products should make consumers aware of the presence of any allergens in writing, as well as verbally. Previously, verbal communication alone was considered sufficient for non-prepacked food. The change means caterers now need written allergen information available for buffets, canapes, plated meals, and any food served without individual packaging.

The 14 major allergens under UK law: celery, cereals containing gluten (wheat, rye, barley, oats), crustaceans, eggs, fish, lupin, milk, molluscs, mustard, tree nuts (almonds, hazelnuts, walnuts, cashews, pecans, brazils, pistachios, macadamia), peanuts, sesame, soybeans, sulphur dioxide/sulphites (at concentrations above 10mg/kg or 10mg/litre). Every recipe in your system needs to track all 14.

Where caterers are most at risk

The risk is not theoretical. The FSA investigates allergen incidents. Local authority environmental health officers inspect catering businesses. Prosecution for allergen-related harm can result in fines, closure, and criminal charges. These are the common failure points.

Recipe modifications not tracked. A chef substitutes an ingredient because the original is out of stock. The substitution introduces a new allergen. The allergen information for that dish is now wrong. In a system where allergens are tracked at the recipe level and linked to ingredients, a substitution triggers an automatic allergen recalculation. In a spreadsheet, it depends on someone remembering to update the sheet.
Guest dietary requirements not reaching the kitchen. A wedding guest submits a nut allergy on the RSVP form. The information sits in the event planner's email or spreadsheet. Three months later, the production sheet for that event does not flag the allergy. This is the gap between event management and kitchen production that most catering software does not bridge.
Cross-contamination not documented. Even if a dish does not contain a major allergen as an ingredient, it may have been prepared in an environment where that allergen is present. "May contain" warnings are not legally required but are a standard risk management practice. Your system should allow you to flag potential cross-contamination separately from direct allergen content.
PPDS labels not generated for event deliveries. A caterer preparing 200 boxed lunches for a corporate event needs every box labelled correctly. If labels are created manually (typed into a label printer one at a time), errors accumulate. A system that generates labels directly from the recipe's ingredient list eliminates this manual step.

What allergen tracking software should do

At minimum, an allergen tracking system for caterers needs five capabilities.

Ingredient-level allergen data. Every ingredient in your database is tagged with its allergen content. When you build a recipe, the allergens are calculated automatically from the ingredients. If you change an ingredient, the allergens update.
Recipe-level allergen summary. Every recipe shows which of the 14 allergens are present, derived from its ingredients. This summary is visible to kitchen staff, event planners, and on any client-facing menu or label.
Menu-level allergen visibility. When you build an event menu from multiple recipes, the allergens for each dish are visible alongside the menu. If a guest's dietary requirement conflicts with a menu item, the system flags it before the event, not on the day.
PPDS label generation. For prepacked food, the system generates labels with the full ingredient list and highlighted allergens, formatted to meet the legal requirements. Labels should be generated directly from the recipe data, not typed manually.
Written allergen information for non-prepacked food. For buffets, platters, and served meals, the system produces allergen information sheets or table cards that can be displayed alongside the food. This meets the March 2025 requirement for written (not just verbal) allergen communication.

Software options for allergen tracking

Dedicated allergen and recipe platforms

Kafoodle is the strongest dedicated option. It tracks all 14 allergens through every recipe, generates PPDS-compliant labels, provides nutritional analysis, and handles recipe costing. The platform is UK-built and widely used. The limitation is that Kafoodle is a recipe and compliance tool, not a catering management platform. You need a separate system for event management, client CRM, and invoicing.

Nutritics is another option, offering allergen tracking alongside detailed nutritional analysis. Originally designed for dietitians and food service, it can be used by caterers who need calorie counts and nutritional data alongside allergen information.

FoodDocs offers food safety management including allergen tracking and HACCP documentation. More focused on compliance documentation than recipe management.

Generic food labelling tools

Planglow LabelLogic and IndiCater focus specifically on food labelling, including PPDS-compliant labels with allergen highlighting. These are labelling tools rather than recipe management platforms. They generate correct labels but do not manage the underlying recipe data or track allergens through menu variations.

The gap

None of the catering management platforms covered in our catering software comparison include allergen tracking that meets the standard described above. Spoonfed does not track allergens. CaterSOFT does not track allergens. Caterease does not track allergens. The allergen tracking tools (Kafoodle, Nutritics) do not handle event management or invoicing. Caterers are left running two or more systems that do not talk to each other.

For a caterer preparing a wedding with 120 guests, 8 dietary requirements, 3 courses, and PPDS-labelled canapes, the allergen data needs to flow from the recipe through the menu through the guest's dietary requirement through to the kitchen production sheet and the label printer. In the current tool ecosystem, that flow is broken at every handoff point.

When bespoke closes the gap

A bespoke system built for a catering operation can connect what off-the-shelf tools leave disconnected. Ingredients with allergen data at the base. Recipes built from ingredients with allergens calculated automatically. Event menus built from recipes with allergens visible. Guest dietary requirements matched against menu allergens with conflicts flagged. Kitchen production sheets that show allergen information per dish per table. PPDS labels generated directly from recipe data. Written allergen information produced for buffet displays.

This is not a hypothetical architecture. It is how allergen tracking should work in any food business handling more than a handful of recipes. The reason it does not exist in off-the-shelf tools is that the catering management platforms and the food compliance platforms were built by different companies for different purposes. A bespoke system connects them because it is built for your specific operation from the start.