Allergens and nutrients

Why this is needed#

In the European Union, the United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, and many other countries, it is legally required to provide guests with information about allergens in dishes. Fines for non-compliance can reach tens of thousands of euros.

Meni makes it easy to label allergens and nutritional values — the information is displayed directly in the digital menu.

14 main allergens (EU)#

According to Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011, the following allergens must be labeled:

This is the list of regulatory requirements, not the list of what can be flagged on an item today — see the next section.

How to label allergens in Meni#

Step 0. Turn the card fields on#

The dish-flags block and the nutrients block are off by default — without this step you won't find them on the item card. There are two equivalent ways to enable them:

• in the header of the item card — the "Visible Fields" gear, toggles "Dish Flags" (allergens, diets, special tags) and "Nutrients" (calories, protein, fat, carbs);
• in the App Store — the cards "I mark allergens and dietary info on dishes" and "I indicate nutritional values for dishes".

The onboarding wizard pre-selects dish flags for the cafe, restaurant, bakery and canteen concepts, and nutrients for cafe, fast food and canteen. In every other case turn the fields on manually.

Step 1. Flag the item#

1. Open the menu item for editing — the "Info" tab.
2. In the dish flags block select everything present in the dish.
3. The card saves itself — the icons appear next to the item in the menu.

What can be flagged on an item#

The card's flag dictionary is fixed, and since September 2026 its "allergens" group holds all 14 EU allergens — plus the "Gluten Free" dietary claim:

There used to be seven flags: peanuts were not separated from nuts, molluscs from crustaceans, and fish, celery, mustard, sesame, sulphur dioxide and lupin had no flag at all. Items marked with the old set keep working exactly as before: "Contains Nuts" still means nuts, "Crustaceans" still means crustaceans. If a dish contains a non-standard allergen (coriander, say), state it in the dish description — the description is visible to the guest on the card and is translated into every menu language.

The icon library in the Labels section (/labels) holds 29 standard labels — all 14 EU allergens plus 15 dietary and special ones — and you can add your own there. But the library defines icons and translations, not the choice list on an item: only the flags from the table above can be selected on a dish card. See Dish labels.

There is no separate bulk screen, but you can flag many dishes at once by voice in the "Voice assistant" section: "mark all soups as containing gluten", "set nuts on everything with chicken", "remove the gluten allergen from all drinks". The assistant asks for confirmation and applies the flags to every matching item. The AI card check speeds labelling up too: among other things it suggests dish flags (diets and allergens) from the same dictionary, and you accept them in one click.

Display for guests#

In the digital menu#

• Allergen icons are displayed next to each item
• On the dish card the allergen name in the guest's language is printed next to the icon — no need to guess from the picture
• A dish-label filter is available — the guest picks dietary labels (vegetarian, vegan, halal, gluten free…) and sees only matching items; the choice is remembered and survives a page reload
• An "exclude allergen" filter is available too — the guest ticks what they must avoid and those items disappear from the menu. Its list is built from the allergens actually present in your menu: the codes are derived from the flags set on the dish cards, so nothing has to be filled in separately. "Gluten Free" never enters that list — it is a dietary claim and lives in the dietary-label filter

Display example#

🍝 Pasta Carbonara                    ₽650
   Spaghetti, bacon, parmesan, egg, cream
   🌾 🥚 🥛
   [Calories: 520 kcal | Protein: 22g | Fat: 28g | Carbs: 45g]

Nutritional value (nutrients)#

For each item, you can specify:

Nutrients are set not only for the dish as a whole, but also per variant (portion size, dough type) and per add-on — the guest sees the figures for the option they picked. There are no "fiber", "sugar" or "salt" fields on the card.

Country requirements#

Additional labels#

In addition to allergens, you can label items as:

Tips#

1. Don't skip allergens — it's not only caring for guests, but also a legal requirement
2. Update when the recipe changes — if the ingredients changed, update the labeling
3. Train staff — employees should know the ingredients and be able to inform guests
4. Use the filter — show guests that your establishment cares about safety