Natasha's Law for restaurants and pubs: what must be labelled, what must be said, and the change-control that keeps it true

"Natasha's law" is one of the most-typed phrases in this sector five years after it came in, which says that the rule is still not clear to the people who have to run it. It is two rules, and only one of them is a label.

Rule one: the label, for food packed before it is ordered

Since 1 October 2021, food that is prepacked for direct sale, meaning packed on the same premises it is sold from, before the customer asks for it, must carry a label with the name of the food and a full ingredients list, with each of the 14 allergens emphasised, by bold, capitals or colour. The sandwiches made in the morning and put in the chiller, the wrapped flapjack on the bar, the salad pots at the counter: all PPDS, all labelled.

Food packed after the customer orders it, a sandwich made to order and wrapped, is not PPDS. Food that is not packed at all, the plate from the kitchen, is not PPDS. Food packed somewhere else and delivered, the crisps and the bought-in cakes, is ordinary prepacked food and already carried a full label.

Rule two: the information, for everything else

For non-prepacked food, which is most of what a pub or restaurant sells, allergen information for the 14 allergens must be available to the customer. It may be in writing, on the menu or on an allergen matrix the customer can see, or it may be given verbally by staff, in which case there must be a written statement, on the menu, a sign or a board, telling customers to ask. A verbal answer with no signpost does not meet the rule. A signpost pointing to a member of staff who does not know does not either.

Distance sales, meaning food ordered for delivery or collection, need the allergen information available before the order is placed and again when the food is handed over. The same applies to a table booked with a dietary note: the booking confirmation that states the no-show policy is the place to confirm what the kitchen has been told.

The 14 allergens

Celery, cereals containing gluten, crustaceans, eggs, fish, lupin, milk, molluscs, mustard, peanuts, sesame, soybeans, sulphur dioxide and sulphites at over 10 mg/kg or 10 mg/litre, and tree nuts. Not "nuts": the label and the matrix name the kind.

The part that causes the prosecutions

The label and the matrix are documents; what gets a venue into court is a document that was right in March and wrong in June because a supplier changed a recipe, a chef swapped a brand, or a special went on the board without going on the matrix. The reported fines in 2025, in the £44,000 to £45,000 range for individual operators, followed that pattern rather than a venue that had no matrix at all.

So the rule to run is change control:

• Every delivery is checked against the spec. A new brand of stock, a new bread supplier, a "new improved recipe" flash on the box: the ingredients list is read and the matrix updated the same day, before the product is used.
• Every special goes on the matrix before it goes on the board. The chef writes the dish; the matrix is updated; then it is sold. Not the other way round.
• One version. The matrix at the pass, the one at the bar and the one on the website are the same document, dated. Three copies maintained separately drift apart within a month.
• A question is answered from the document, not from memory. Staff are trained to look it up and say so. "I'll check" is the right answer; "I think it's fine" is the one in the court report.

Functions and groups

Allergen requirements for a function arrive late and change on the day. The function quote terms ask for them with the final numbers and promise written confirmation of what the kitchen can and cannot provide, which is both good practice and evidence. The duty is the venue's, not the host's, whatever the booking form says.

What this looks like as a job

Someone owns the matrix. They read every delivery note and spec sheet, update the document, version it, and tell the floor what changed. An AI Back-office Clerk set up by Overlyft does that from the supplier emails and the spec sheets, flags the change to the chef before service, and keeps the dated versions; the chef and the owner remain responsible, as the law places them.

This is general information, not legal advice; the Food Standards Agency's guidance is the authority, and enforcement is by the local authority.