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Allergen sign for restaurants in Switzerland: notice and menu legend to print (PDF)

By Trolevo · Published · 10 min read

Anyone in Switzerland who serves or sells food loose must be able to give information about the 14 ingredients in Annex 6 LIV that can cause allergies or other undesirable reactions: in writing or, under two conditions, orally. The duty behind it is explained in Allergen declaration in restaurants. Here are the templates to hang up: a notice sign, in German and Italian with the official model text, and a legend in the wording of the ordinance. The ordinances cited are as of 1 July 2025.

One PDF each in German, French and Italian, 8 A4 pages, direct download, no login, no email address:

If you print only one page, print page 1, the sign; page 2 has it in A5. Pages 3 to 7 are for businesses that show allergens in writing, and page 8 explains them all.

There is no English pack: the ordinances exist only in German, French and Italian, and so does the pack. Take the pack in the language your guests read on site; if you want English as well, hang an English version next to it, not in its place.

On the legal quotations in this article. Swiss food law is published in German, French and Italian. There is no official English version of the ordinances quoted here, so every passage from them below is an unofficial working translation provided for information only, and the instrument names are kept in their German abbreviations. The binding wording is the German text linked in the sources at the end.

What must the allergen sign say?

One sentence, in writing and clearly visible: that allergen information is available orally. Every business that does not declare allergens in writing but gives them orally on request needs this notice. The information may be given orally only if “a clearly visible written notice points out that the information can be obtained orally” (Art. 5 para. 1 let. d LIV).

The same letter sets the second condition: that “the information is available to staff in writing, or a competent person can provide it immediately”. So the sign alone is not enough. On top of it you need either the information in writing with the staff, for example in an allergen matrix, or a competent person who provides it immediately. If you work without written information, you need that person in every service; the written information covers the service in which they are missing.

For the text of the notice there are official models. The Graubünden Office for Food Safety and Animal Health shows this one in its leaflet of 31 July 2024:

“Werte Gäste, Angaben zu Zutaten, die Allergien oder andere unerwünschte Reaktionen auslösen können, erhalten Sie auf Nachfrage bei unserem Bedienpersonal.”

In English (working translation): “Dear guests, information on ingredients that can cause allergies or other undesirable reactions is available from our service staff on request.” Page 1 of the German pack is this text in A4. Page 2 has it twice in A5, once for guests and once in the leaflet’s version for shops, which begins “Werte Kunden” (dear customers). The Italian pack prints the office’s own Italian version; for French, no authority has published a model text as far as we know, so the French sign uses the words of the French text of the ordinance. The cantonal leaflets of Zurich and Solothurn show a second official model text, also in German.

“Clearly visible” means in practice: where people order, and before they order, because “the required information must be available at the time the goods are offered” (Art. 5 para. 3 LIV). This applies to every business, whatever its size.

The sign covers allergens only. The origin of the animals for certain meats and for fish, and the country of production of bread and fine bakery goods, remain mandatory in writing, even when allergens are handled orally (Art. 39 para. 2 LGV).

How is the allergen legend for the menu built?

With 14 lines in the wording of Annex 6 LIV (without the botanical names and the exceptions), each with its number from the annex; for cereals and nuts a letter for the type is added. On the menu, the dish then carries only the code, in the example Carrot cake with almonds: 1a, 3, 8a for wheat, eggs and almonds. Whether that is right is for your own recipe to say.

The numbers are the item numbers of Annex 6. That is why they mean the same in German, French and Italian, and a guest from French-speaking Switzerland can read a menu from German-speaking Switzerland with the French legend.

The letters follow a principle that GastroSuisse describes: letters added to the number code so that cereals and nuts are identified more precisely, wheat for example as 1a and cashew nuts as 8d. The legend in the pack assigns them in the order of Annex 6 and prints them all. A gluten-containing cereal without a letter of its own is written with the number 1 and its name.

Why the type? The practice guide of the Bern University of Applied Sciences (BFH, in German) lists cereals and nuts as “to be named”: wheat, not just cereal; hazelnuts, not just nuts. Group terms such as “Glutenhaltiges Getreide” (cereals containing gluten) or “Nüsse” (nuts) are expressly allowed by the LIV for voluntary trace notices (Art. 11 para. 7bis).

The legend follows the wording of the LIV, not that of the EU regulation; where the two differ is shown in the full list of the 14 allergens. And it belongs on the same menu or next to the same board as the codes: a code whose legend the guest first has to look for does not help them.

Codes or written out: which do guests understand better?

Written out. The BFH practice guide, produced with support from the BLV, recommends writing allergenic ingredients out in full and tends to advise against coding systems. The guide gives its reasons: businesses use codes inconsistently, and anyone who reads a code first has to translate it.

That is why the daily menu and the buffet cards in the pack carry a “Contains:” line (“Enthält:”, “Contient:”, “Contiene:”), the word the LIV uses to introduce the information when no list of ingredients is required (Art. 11 para. 2). In the example: Carrot cake with almonds. Contains: wheat, eggs, almonds. Codes are the answer when space is short, for example on a printed menu with many dishes.

There are no pictograms in the pack. The LIV allows them to supplement information; on their own they may express information only “where the ordinances provide for it” (Art. 3 para. 3 LIV).

What goes on the daily menu, the board and the buffet?

If you inform orally, the sign is all you hang at the board and the buffet as well, and the second condition applies here too. If you declare in writing, you write the same information everywhere, in the form the medium allows. The LIV says: “Information to be given in writing must be provided in a suitable form. Providers of community catering may place it on the menu or on a poster.” (Art. 5 para. 2 LIV)

  • Daily menu (page 5): one “Contains:” line per dish, the date at the top. Leave no line empty, because guests read an empty line as “none”. If none of the 14 ingredients is in the dish, the line says “none of the 14 allergens”.
  • Board (page 6): write the allergens out in chalk, or write the codes on the board and hang page 6 next to it, with the notice and the legend on one sheet. The practice guide expressly counts the board among the places for written information.
  • Buffet (page 7): one card per dish, with the dish, “Contains:” and the date. At a buffet guests serve themselves; without a card they would have to find someone from the staff for every question. The cards are the more convenient answer there, but they are not mandatory.

If you enter codes instead of words on the daily menu or at the buffet for lack of space, put the legend next to them. The cards have no field for “may contain traces”, because in loose sale there is no need to point out unintentional mixing (Art. 5 para. 1 let. f LIV). What the kitchen does against such mixing is a separate duty.

How does the allergen sign stay up to date?

The sign stays, the legend follows the current version of Annex 6, and the dish lines change with every recipe.

The legend in the pack has the wording as of 1 July 2025. Annex 6 was last amended with effect from 1 February 2024: since then, spelt and Khorasan wheat have been listed next to wheat instead of as examples of it, and in the German text the nut line reads “Hartschalenobst, Schalenfrüchte oder Nüsse”. Older templates and some leaflets still carry the earlier version. Code lists from before this change may assign the cereal letters differently, so the codes on the menu and the legend should come from the same sheet. Before reprinting, it is worth checking the current version on fedlex.

The dish lines change with every recipe change and with every change of product or supplier; the triggers for updating are in the allergen matrix template. That is why every menu and every buffet card carries a date that is updated with every change.

How sign, matrix, list and contamination fit together is set out in Allergens in food service.

What does Trolevo take over, and what stays on paper?

In Trolevo, a dish’s allergens roll up from all its ingredients and sub-recipes, including those added by hand; if a sub-recipe changes, every dish that uses it changes with it. An ingredient can be confirmed as free of all 14. A dish shows that none of the 14 is in it only once every ingredient has an entry, sub-recipes included; otherwise it names the ingredients that do not have one yet. The recipe sheet prints the allergens as a “Contains:” line, in the kitchen’s language.

The app does not print a menu, a legend or a sign. It records allergens as the 14 categories, not as a type of cereal or nut; whether it is wheat or spelt, only the ingredient itself tells you, inside a sub-recipe too: its name or, for a bought product, the label. So when you copy the line from the recipe sheet onto the daily menu or a buffet card, put the type in place of the category for cereals and nuts, and the cards for guests come from this pack. This helps you meet the labelling duty; responsibility for correct information stays with the business. Trolevo is in development – get early access.

Sources

This article is general information, not legal advice. The binding texts are the statutes (LMG, LGV, LIV) and the information provided by the cantonal enforcement authorities.

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