Legally Declarable Allergens? Waitrose say don't need to list ingredients.

[ilovemydogandmrobama]

Went to Waitrose last week, and asked about ingredients in bread. DS is dairy and soya allergic. They didn't have any ingredients in store, but said they would be on file at head office . As it was a weekend, they weren't available.

Sent an email to Waitrose and they say that they aren't required by law to list ingredients in bakery goods that are loose unless it's a legally required allergen.

Anyone?

diry and soy are both, I believe, on the list of required allergens - so they should have been able to tell you. Check Food Standards Agency website.

This is the FSA list of allergens which should be declared on packaging etc - www.food.gov.uk/foodindustry/guidancenotes/labelregsguidance/maycontainguide. You could also contact the Anaphylaxis Campaign to ask for advice.
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Claire

Great ideas! Waitrose are saying that since the goods aren't packaged, they don't have to list ingredients Just seems wrong that if something is baked in store, it's exempt.

Have emailed both Food Standards and the Anaphylaxis Campaign. thank you!

Not sure that "baked in store" are exempt. Aren't food providers supposed to be able to tell you what allergens are in their food, at least for the major allergens? Not sure if that is law or just guidance/ good practise.

Anyway regardless of the law it's pretty stupid of Waitrose to lose custom. I guess they think that no-one with allergies will buy anyway because of the contamination risk. Most in-store bakeries have blanket "may contain" warnings.

All bakeries are like this, but the supermarkets usually have a file in store which lists the allergens in each of their bakery products. I expect that the store in question just couldn't find their folder at the time, which I have also experienced in Tesco on occasion.

as a cake decorator i dont have to list ingredients, however there are a list or allergins i have to state if its in the product these include p-nut, wheat, egg, sulpher dioxide and a few others.

But last time i looked (and i check every other week as these things constantly change) soya and dairy werent on the list. I understand why your upset and i agree its a stupid system, but legally they actually arent doing anything wrong. More living to the letter of the law

I believe that you are wrong about that addicted. Where is it that you are checking?

What I can't understand is that the absence of allergens is important to me. I need to know whether an ingredient is absent. Obviously I don't buy things for DS where I can't check the ingredients, but it was a situation where there was reason to believe that he ate some of the baguette and needed to find out what was in it! Turned out later that DD admitted to eating it, but the fact that no one could tell me what was in it is worrying.

I read somewhere (I'll try and find where) that foods cooked in bakeries (incl. supermarket bakeries) do not have to list allergens. I found it incredibly annoying with ds1 (at the time, egg allergic) and now just don't bother even looking at all the yummy bakery stuff with ds2 (dairy allergic) around.

However, we have a bread-maker and I just make my own. Stick all the ingredients in before bed and set the timer to bake lovely fresh bread for the morning. Would that be an option? At least then you have some control over what's going in there.

OK, this is not exactly the info I previously found, but please see here. This is from the food standards agency and states that allergens should be listed on "pre-packaged" foods. I suspect bakery goods don't fall under that.

It's really good though that you emailed food standards and anaphylaxis campaign, I suspect if more of us made a fuss it would be possible for more things to change.