Manage the allergen library

The library is the list of allergens this restaurant uses. Every item's allergen panel and every public filter is built from it, so it is worth setting up once, deliberately, before dishes are tagged.

Where

Settings → Restaurant settings → Content settings → Allergens, headed Manage Allergens.

The screen has two parts:

1. Which types of content have allergen information? — the menu types that carry allergens.
2. The allergen list itself, one row per allergen.

Choose the menu types first

Tick every menu type whose items should carry allergen information. Food menus are enabled during setup; the drinks menus are not, and often should be:

• Beverages — beers contain gluten, cream liqueurs contain dairy, several aperitifs contain sulphites.
• Cocktails — egg white, dairy, nuts, gluten.
• Wine list — sulphites, if your policy is to declare them.

A menu type that is not ticked has no allergen panel on its items and no filter on its archive.

The rows

Each allergen has three editable values:

Add one with Add Allergen, remove one with the remove control on its row, and store the whole list with Save Allergens.

Editing the seeded list

A new site starts with seventeen allergens, each with a description and an icon. Treat it as a starting point:

• Rename to your own wording — Lactose instead of Dairy, if that is what your kitchen says.
• Remove what you will never use.
• Add what your kitchen is asked about — nightshades, coriander, spicy, pork, alcohol in a dessert.

Keep the list short enough to read. A filter with forty tags is not usable on a phone, and every extra allergen is one more thing to keep accurate on every dish.

Renaming is global

Renaming an allergen changes it everywhere at once, including on items already tagged with it. Nothing is unassigned and nothing needs re-tagging — the items keep pointing at the same allergen under its new name.

This is the safe way to change wording across a whole menu.

Restore Defaults

Restore Defaults replaces the list with the built-in seventeen. It asks for confirmation first, and the confirmation says what it means: the existing allergens are removed.

Use it when a library has been edited into an unusable state and you would rather start again. Do not use it as a way to "add the missing default ones" — add those individually instead.

Descriptions are guest-facing

The description appears in the allergen information panel a guest can open from the menu. Write it for a guest, not for the kitchen:

Gluten — Found in wheat, barley, rye and related grains. Must be avoided by people with celiac disease or gluten sensitivity.

Keep every description the same length and register. The panel is read as a block, and one paragraph among sixteen one-liners looks like a mistake.

After changing the library

1. Save, and confirm the success message.
2. Open a menu signed out and check the filter tags.
3. Open the allergen information panel and read the descriptions as a guest.
4. If you removed an allergen, check the dishes that carried it — they no longer declare it.
5. Regenerate any PDF that prints allergens.