Allergen Information for Non-Prepacked Food

Download your allergen icons and posters

These allergen icon images and allergen matrices are available to download in English format for businesses in England and NI, and in a Welsh format for businesses in Wales.

Last updated: 5 March 2025

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Last updated: 5 March 2025

See all updates

View as PDF

Food businesses must tell consumers if they use any of the 14 regulated allergens in the food they provide.

If you sell non-prepacked or loose foods, such as a meal in a restaurant or loose brownies you can choose how to provide this information, however best practice is to have allergen information available for the consumer in writing. This works best when it is supported by a conversation with the consumer.

Allergen icons

Allergen icons are available as PNG files, and matrices are available as PDF or PPTX.

Allergen posters are available to download in an English format for businesses in England and NI, and Welsh format for businesses in Wales.

Posters are available as PDF or JPEG.

All 14 allergen icons in English, in full colour

Instructions for use of allergen icons

You could choose to write all the allergens present in each food item on a menu, food ticket or label such as:

Chicken satay: contains wheat, soy, fish, and peanut.

Alternatively, you could choose to use symbols to represent each allergen present in the food. You can download individual symbols or all 14 to use on your own allergen documents.

To use the symbols effectively:

Ensure the symbols are at least 0.6 cm x 0.6 cm in size (this is a similar size to 20 pt type font).
Use the black and white version of the symbols if printing with a black and white printer to maximise clarity
Download the symbols each time you wish to use them as copying and pasting could result in them becoming unclear.

The symbols can be downloaded and inserted into various programmes such as Microsoft Word to suit your business needs and have been provided in English and Welsh.

The symbols can be made larger or reduced in size, however care must be taken to ensure that the name of the allergen is clearly visible or is provided in an accessible key where the name of the allergen is clearly visible.

Extra care must be taken with nuts and cereals containing gluten, because these two food allergens are groups of foods: nuts includes all tree nuts, such as almond and hazelnut (but not peanut, which is a legume) and cereals containing gluten includes most grains, such as wheat and barley. When expressing the allergen information using symbols, a single symbol can be used to represent the allergen group. However, the food business must be able to advise on the specific nut or cereal if a consumer requires more information.

Food businesses should also be mindful when making ‘free from’ claims such as ‘gluten free’ to avoid confusion. The consumer must be able to understand whether the allergen is present or not e.g. whether a product contains a cereal/cereals containing gluten or is free from cereals containing gluten.

There is a distinction between gluten-free claims and food allergen free-from claims. This is because gluten is not an allergen, but a protein found in cereals that affects people with coeliac disease, whilst food allergens contain a range of proteins that can cause allergic reactions. This means that all free-from claims for food allergens are a guarantee that the food will not contain that allergen, so people with that allergy are protected, e.g. a cereal-free claim is a guarantee that the food will not contain any cereals.

In contrast, a gluten-free claim is to inform people with coeliac disease that there is less than 20ppm of gluten in the final product. There are rules for making gluten free claims, more information on these rules can be found in our Food Allergen Labelling Technical Guidance.

Allergen icons in English:

Allergen icons in Welsh

Instructions for the use of the allergen matrix

Food businesses could choose to use an allergen matrix to provide allergen information in writing. When using a matrix must identify all of the 14 allergens that are present in the food.

This is an example of the matrix in use:

An example allergen matrix indicating allergens present

You can download an editable version of this matrix, which can be overtyped and used for your own dishes. You can also print the matrix and handwrite dishes onto it (ensuring that it is legible and easy to understand).

Allergen matrix in English:

Allergen matrix in Welsh

Instructions for the use of the allergen posters

It is also important to talk to consumers about their allergen requirements. Food businesses can encourage consumers to speak to staff about their needs in a number of ways such as asking consumers and/or displaying signs.

You can download a sign to display in your premises or on your website/digital platform.

There are two versions of the sign, one has a space at the bottom right-hand corner for you to personalise it with your own business logo.

To add your business logo to this version of the sign, please first download the correct poster from the FSA website. Once the poster has been downloaded, it can be edited in its JPEG format in Adobe Acrobat (the software usually used to read PDFs) by opening the file and clicking Edit > Image (select the logo image and adjust accordingly).

The working/editable version is also available on Adobe Illustrator, which would require the Adobe Illustrator software from Adobe Creative Cloud.

These posters can be downloaded in English or Welsh language.

Allergen poster with space for a business logo

This is the version of the poster with a space for a business logo to be added. You can download this poster and add your own logo.

Allergen poster without a space for a business logo

This version of the poster is the same, but does not include the space to add your own logo. You can download this poster for use without adding a logo.

Allergen posters in English:

Allergen posters in Welsh:

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