An allergen matrix worked out from your ingredients, with what can be made without on request, a one-dish answer card, the six-step script for the front of house, and a verification date that runs out.
Built for the Saturday afternoon when someone new is asked “does this have nuts?”
For: The owner or manager of one independent café, coffee shop or small restaurant in the UK who has a matrix somewhere and knows the real risk is a guess at the till.
The free taste of the paid Dish card tab. Pick a dish and an allergen, and read the answer the front of house would give.
Allergen Matrix
A matrix worked out from your ingredients, a one-dish answer card, the six-step script for the front of house, and a verification date that runs out. Excel and Google Sheets.
What a grid of ticks cannot do
Built and tested
How it works
The operator layer
Get the matrix
£19. The Excel workbook and the seven-page pack with the printed matrix, the blank grid and the three cards. Works in Google Sheets. Every corrected version free.
Every café has an allergen matrix somewhere. The risk is not the matrix. It is the guess at the till. This edition is built for that moment: the answer the front of house can give in ten seconds, and the habits that keep the sheet true.
Tag each ingredient’s allergens once, across the 14 the law names. List each dish’s ingredients. Every row of the matrix is worked out: C contains, C* contains but can be made without on request, M may contain. A substituted ingredient changes every row it touches the day you change the tag.
Each recipe line says whether an ingredient can be left out or swapped and how. The dish card lists what a dish contains, what cannot be ruled out, and what the kitchen can do on request, ingredient by ingredient, so the front of house can say yes or no without going back to the pass. It is never a free-from claim, and the file says so.
Six steps, printed by the till: ask, check the sheet, never guess, say what we cannot rule out, write it on the ticket and tell the pass, escalate. The rule under it: if it is not on the sheet, it is not available, and “I can’t be sure” is a complete answer.
Every ingredient carries whether a supplier specification is on file and when it was last verified. The sheet flags what is overdue against an interval you set.
A fourteen-item cross-contact self-audit from the FSA’s guidance and the pass, marked monthly. An “if a customer reacts” card from the NHS anaphylaxis page, and a log for reactions and near misses.
The 14 allergens, loose-food information duties, “may contain” and when it may be used, no free-from claims, and prepacked-for-direct-sale labelling, read from the FSA’s guidance on 15 October 2026, with links. And the line that matters: you must verify the allergens in your own recipes with your own suppliers, every time an ingredient changes.
Not a labelling tool for prepacked food sold elsewhere. Not a recipe or costing tool (those are the Recipe Spec Sheets and the Menu Costing & GP Calculator; all three share the same ingredient layout). Not legal, food-safety or medical advice.
An illustrative copy for a fictional café, every tab worked; a blank copy; and the seven-page pack with the printed matrix, a blank grid and the three cards. Formulas locked without a password, no macros, every function also in Google Sheets.
The owner or manager of one independent café, coffee shop or small restaurant in the UK.
Groups with a labelling or recipe-management system. Manufacturers.
Real values from the illustrative copy. The Corner Café is fictional and its tags are examples, not statements about any real product.
Ali Solak has spent more than twenty years in hospitality operations and leadership, running outlets across five countries. In London he led the multi-site rollout of Simit Sarayı, with sites on Oxford Street, Bond Street, Piccadilly Circus, Leicester Square, Villiers Street, Southampton Row, King’s Road and Green Lanes.
In June 2024 he founded Epicurean Digital Consultants, a London consultancy for independent cafés, restaurants and hospitality brands. It is founder-led: you work with Ali directly, not with an account manager. He is the author of Before You Sign the Lease.
The operator’s edition
£19.00
The Excel workbook (illustrative and blank) and the seven-page pack.
Use AI to find the money your restaurant is already losing.
Free preview · from £19.99See itBefore you sign the lease, know your real opening number.
Free sample chapter · from £29.00See itA second operator’s eye on your numbers before you sign.
£195.00See it
