Australia & NZ Allergen Rules for Restaurants 2026

PEAL — Plain English Allergen Labelling — is the FSANZ standard (Proposal P1044) that requires allergens to be declared using specific, simple required names in a consistent format. It was gazetted in February 2021 with a three-year transition to February 2024, plus a two-year stock-in-trade period that ended on 25 February 2026. Since that date, PEAL is fully in force across Australia and New Zealand: every packaged product must show allergens in bold, in the ingredient list and in a "Contains" summary statement, using the required names.

Food service businesses selling unpackaged food do not print PEAL labels, but under the Food Standards Code and state Food Acts they must be able to provide accurate allergen information to any customer who asks — and since the 2026 PEAL alignment, general answers are not acceptable: staff must identify the SPECIFIC allergen using its required name. Saying "there are nuts in this" is not enough; the answer must be "it contains almond and cashew". State regulators such as the NSW Food Authority actively enforce this during inspections.

PEAL replaces vague terms with specific required names from Schedule 9 of the Food Standards Code. Tree nuts must be named individually (almond, Brazil nut, cashew, hazelnut, macadamia, pecan, pine nut, pistachio, walnut). Seafood must be split into fish, crustacea and mollusc. Wheat is declared separately from gluten (which covers barley, rye and oats). The full list also includes peanut, milk, egg, sesame, soy, lupin and added sulphites (≥10 mg/kg).

Australia has among the highest documented rates of food allergy in the world: landmark research (the HealthNuts study) found around 1 in 10 infants had a challenge-confirmed food allergy. Allergy & Anaphylaxis Australia estimates that food allergy affects about 2 in every 100 adults and up to 1 in 10 babies. That prevalence is exactly why Australian regulators moved to the strictest plain-language labelling standard in the world — and why Australian diners actively expect clear allergen information when eating out.

Under state Food Acts (for example the NSW Food Act 2003), providing false or misleading information about food — including allergen content — is an offence that can lead to significant fines for both the business and individuals, plus enforcement actions like improvement notices and prosecutions. Beyond regulatory penalties, a wrong allergen answer that causes anaphylaxis exposes the business to civil liability. Written per-dish allergen information that staff and guests can both see is the practical way to remove the guesswork.

IAMenu's Super Chef AI detects allergens per dish automatically, and the dish's ingredient description carries the specific ingredients (e.g., "almond crumble"), so staff and guests see both the allergen category and the specific source. The AI is built on the EU's 14-allergen standard, which includes everything on the FSANZ list — lupin, molluscs, sulphites and all. Your team can always adjust results manually, and the "reviewed" flag protects manual entries from being overwritten.

Yes — this is where a digital menu shines in Australia and New Zealand. One QR code shows the menu in the guest's own language (29 available), with allergen names correctly translated. A Japanese or German tourist reads the allergen information natively instead of testing your staff's language skills during a rush. Allergen icons follow the same standardized system in every language.

Plans start at $19/month (Starter), $39/month (Professional) and $69/month (Premium) — automatic AI allergen detection is included in ALL plans. Every account starts with a 14-day free trial, no credit card required. Compared with the operational cost of maintaining an accurate allergen matrix by hand across a whole menu — and updating it every time a supplier changes — automation typically pays for itself in the first week.