Selling food and the law

Businesses selling food need to consider two things:
• the ingredients used deliberately in the food on sale
• whether that food on sale has come into contact with other ingredients which could be a risk to people with allergies and intolerances

Under section 14 of the Food Safety Act 1990 businesses must not ‘sell to the
purchaser’s prejudice any food which is not of the nature, substance or quality
demanded by the purchaser’ and under section 15 of the same act, businesses
must not falsely describe or present food.

In practice, prosecutions have                                                                                        
been taken against food
businesses who sold
food with the wrong
ingredients listed on the
label, or where an allergic
person specified that their
food should not contain
something which was later
proved to be present. In
such cases, the allergic
person usually suffered
symptoms requiring
emergency
medical attention.

Top tip

Any oil that has previously been used to cook products containing nuts may contain traces of nut proteins.