Allergens overview
CostingBrik tracks the 14 UK-regulated allergens at the ingredient level and rolls them up automatically to every recipe that uses them. The result is a verifiable, always-current allergen declaration for each menu item, built from the same supplier and recipe data you are already maintaining for costing.
Allergen tracking is currently available for UK tenants. Support for other regions is on the roadmap.
The 14 UK-regulated allergens
Brikly tracks the full Food Standards Agency list:
celery, cereals containing gluten, crustaceans, eggs, fish, lupin, milk, molluscs, mustard, nuts, peanuts, sesame, soybeans, and sulphur dioxide and sulphites.
How the model works
Allergen declarations live per supplier variant, not per ingredient. Two suppliers of the same ingredient can have different cross-contamination risks - for example, one brand of oats may be certified gluten-free while another is not - so each supplier on an ingredient carries its own declaration.
For each ingredient, the preferred supplier's declaration is the one used:
- The ingredient detail page shows an Allergens summary card driven by the preferred supplier.
- Recipes roll up allergens from the preferred supplier of each ingredient they use.
- Sub-recipes contribute their own roll-up, so nested recipes are handled automatically.
Switching the preferred supplier on an ingredient updates the recipe roll-up everywhere that ingredient appears.
Three states for a declaration
A supplier's allergen declaration can be in one of three states:
- Not yet declared - no one has reviewed this supplier for allergens. The ingredient and any recipe using it will surface a warning that the free-from claim is not yet verified.
- Declared allergen-free - explicitly confirmed as containing none of the 14 regulated allergens. Stamped with a timestamp so you can see when it was last reviewed.
- Declared with allergens - one or more of the 14 allergens are recorded. Also stamped with a review timestamp.
The "not yet declared" state is deliberately distinct from "declared allergen-free" - silence is not a safe default. Recipes show an amber warning when any of their ingredients are still undeclared.
Where allergens appear
- Ingredient detail page - a summary card showing the effective declaration from the preferred supplier, with a link to edit on that supplier. Sits alongside the Composition card, which records what's actually in a packaged product and feeds allergens upward.
- Label Data modal - the place where declarations are actually made or changed. Opened from the Allergens card on the ingredient page. Houses both the allergen picker and the composition tree, scoped to one supplier at a time.
- Recipe Allergens tab - the consolidated free-from / contains view, with a per-source breakdown showing which ingredient (or sub-recipe) contributed each allergen.
How this feeds into SafetyBrik
Allergen declarations made in CostingBrik are the source of truth for the wider Brikly platform. SafetyBrik consumes the same recipe roll-up to power allergen matrices, customer-facing menus, and staff training - so once you have declared a supplier in CostingBrik, every other surface stays in sync automatically.
The deep link from SafetyBrik back to a recipe's Allergens tab is the round-trip: review the matrix in SafetyBrik, jump straight into CostingBrik to fix any gaps, and the matrix updates the moment the declaration is saved.