What the allergen matrix does
The allergen matrix records which allergens are in every menu item. Staff look items up in the app during service, Ask Paddy uses it to answer customer questions, and you have one accurate source for a legal duty you cannot get wrong.
The 14 UK and EU allergens
Allergen | Common sources |
|---|---|
Cereals containing gluten | Wheat, rye, barley, oats |
Crustaceans | Prawns, crab, lobster |
Eggs | Mayonnaise, cakes, glazes |
Fish | Stocks, sauces, Worcestershire sauce |
Peanuts | Satay, oils, baked goods |
Soybeans | Tofu, soy sauce, oils |
Milk | Butter, cheese, cream, yoghurt |
Tree nuts | Almond, cashew, walnut, pecan |
Celery | Stalks, celeriac, stock, spice |
Mustard | Paste, powder, dressings |
Sesame | Tahini, breads, oils |
Sulphur dioxide / sulphites | Dried fruit, wine, some meats |
Lupin | Some flours and breads |
Molluscs | Mussels, squid, oysters |
US businesses track the 9 FDA major allergens instead, set automatically from your country.
The Allergens pages
Allergens has its own section in the sidebar, under Compliance, with five rows:
Row | What it is for |
|---|---|
Overview | Your allergen compliance at a glance: how many items are fully covered, the counts of items with allergens, missing may-contain and unassessed, and a list of issues to fix, such as an item with no allergen data, no may-contain recorded, no supplier linked, or a bought-in product whose allergens are still an AI suggestion. |
Allergen chart | The matrix itself: every dish with what it contains and may contain, and a Bought-in products view beside Dishes. |
Incidents | The allergen incidents your team reported, to review and close. See below. |
Change log | Every change to your allergen records, with who made it. See below. |
Share | Your live allergen page for customers, with its QR code and website embed. See the end of this guide. |
Add allergen sits in the header of Overview and Allergen chart, and More beside it holds the export.
Contains, may contain, and removable
Paddl records more than a yes or no. For each item you can capture:
Contains for an allergen present in the dish as served
May contain for cross-contamination risk
Removable for an allergen you can leave out on request, such as a nut garnish
Sub-allergens for detail under a heading, for example which tree nut or which cereal
Adding a single menu item
To add one item by hand, go to Allergens, click Add allergen and choose Add menu item. Give it a name (and a category or section if you use them), then tag its allergens as contains, may contain, or removable and save. Add items this way when you are tweaking a menu; to load a whole menu at once, use AI extraction or bulk import below.
Build it fast with AI
You do not have to type the whole menu. Click Add allergen and choose Upload menu: Paddy reads the menu, lists its dishes and works out their allergens for you to check. Upload supplier spec does the same from a supplier specification or data sheet. Always review what Paddy suggests before relying on it, because the legal responsibility is yours.
Bought-in products from delivery notes
Products read off a supplier's delivery note are kept as bought-in products, in their own view on the allergen chart, apart from your dishes. Until someone checks the pack, their allergens are an AI suggestion, not confirmed: shown dashed on the chart, never as allergen-free, and left off the matrix you print or share. See Delivery notes.
From your menu to a HACCP plan
Once your menu and allergens are in, you can build your food safety plan from the same information. After a menu import Paddy suggests building or reviewing your HACCP plan as a next step, or go to Food Safety > HACCP Plans and choose Create HACCP plan > Draft with Paddy. The plan takes the declared and may-contain allergens on each item into account. If you change your allergens later, open the plan and click Review with Paddy to fold the changes in. See HACCP Plans.
Bulk import by spreadsheet
Go to Allergens and click Add allergen
Choose Import from spreadsheet and pick the allergen chart you already keep
Paddy reads the spreadsheet into your chart and shows you what it found
Check each item before you confirm
Check the columns Paddy matched. If a column is read as the wrong allergen, every item in it is tagged wrongly (gluten showing as milk, for example). Look over the preview before you confirm, and edit items individually if anything came in wrong.
PPDS and Natasha's Law
Food prepacked for direct sale (PPDS) must carry a full ingredients list with allergens emphasised, under Natasha's Law. Keep these items accurate in the matrix so your labels and the answers staff give are consistent.
Keeping it accurate
Update the matrix whenever the menu or a recipe changes. Every change is kept on Allergens > Change log (see below), and if a supplier specification changes Paddl can flag the affected items so you can re-check them. Allergen accuracy is separate from staff allergen training, and you need both.
Allergen incidents
When something goes wrong with an allergen, such as a customer reaction, a near miss in the kitchen or a wrong label, record it as an allergen incident. Staff file one from the Report tab in the app, and you can file one with New report on Allergens > Incidents.
This is the same list as the Allergen incidents chip on the Reports tab of Food Safety > Records, so it does not matter which one you open. Each new report reaches the site's managers in the Inbox. Open one to review it, mark whether it needs action and record what you did. For a reaction that may lead to a claim, Get Legal Guidance on the report opens Legal Guidance with it already linked. A month with no incidents is good news, so this list never shows a gap.
The change log
Allergens > Change log is the history of your allergen records: every menu item added, updated or removed, every import and bulk import, and every deletion, with who did it and when. For an update it shows what changed, such as the allergens, may contain, the confirmations, the supplier and the notes. Changes Paddl made itself show as System.
Click Export CSV for a copy. It is a straightforward answer when an inspector asks how you control changes to your allergen information.
Exporting and sharing your matrix
Yes, you can export the matrix. On Allergens > Overview or Allergen chart, choose More > Export and pick a format:
Export as PDF gives you a colour-coded allergen matrix, ready to print or hand to a member of staff. It is the version to pin up in the kitchen or keep behind the counter for service.
Export as CSV gives you a spreadsheet of every item with its allergens, may-contain flags, supplier, and notes, which is useful for sharing with a head office or pulling into your own documents.
The export reflects the matrix exactly as it stands when you download it, so make sure recent changes are saved first. For a full set of allergen records inside a wider inspection bundle, the Audit Pack includes the allergen matrix alongside the rest of your compliance documents.
Share your allergen menu with customers
Paddl can publish your allergen information as a page customers open themselves, at a permanent link. Open Allergens > Share in the sidebar, check what the page will show, then click Publish.
QR code to print for tables, menus or the counter. Download it as PNG or SVG, or download a ready-made A4 poster.
Website embed to show the same page inside your own website. Copy the embed code into an HTML or embed block in WordPress, Wix, Squarespace or similar.
Link to share anywhere else, such as your booking confirmation emails or social media.
The page is live. When you change an allergen in Paddl, the page behind every printed QR code and every website embed changes with it, usually within a minute, so you never reprint a poster because a recipe changed.
What customers see
Your dishes, with what each contains, may contain and can be made without. Customers can search, or pick the allergens they avoid to hide the dishes that contain them. Dishes whose allergens nobody has confirmed yet are marked Check with staff and are hidden whenever a customer filters by an allergen, so an unchecked dish is never mistaken for a safe one. You can choose to leave unconfirmed dishes off the page instead. Bought-in products never appear, and you can hide any dish from the page with Hide from public allergen page on the item. Every page tells customers to speak to a member of staff about their allergy before ordering, and shows when it was last updated.
Your branding
In the Branding panel choose your logo (use your business logo, upload a different one, or none; the account owner can also make an uploaded logo the business logo), your brand colour, a light or dark background, a heading and a short introduction. You can also put your logo in the middle of the QR code. Paddl adjusts a brand colour that would be hard to read. The page carries a small 'Powered by Paddl' line at the bottom.
Taking the page down
Click Unpublish to take the page offline. Printed QR codes then show that the page is not available. Publish again and the same link and QR codes work again, so nothing needs reprinting. Switching the Allergens module off, or a lapsed subscription, also takes the page offline until it is back on.