Allergy-Label Laws Are Coming — Is Your Event F&B Ready?

You're twenty minutes from opening the doors. The buffet is set, the chef has stepped back into the kitchen, and the servers are placing labels by each dish.

You take a closer look at the cards and see:

• A couscous salad with feta cheese, pine nuts and wheat — labeled vegan
• Spinach — GF, DF, VEG, VG, NF, SF
• Mozzarella and Tomato Skewer – No Dairy Added
• Bacon & Egg Croissant — Dairy & Gluten Free, Contains Egg, Nut Free, No Shellfish, Non Vegan, Vegetari
• A “Just Egg” breakfast crock with farro — labeled vegan, vegetarian, nut-free, dairy-free
• Tuscan Kale with White Bean & Pancetta Soup — Vegetarian, Gluten Free, Contains Pork
• And then, in elegant type: “Human Layer Salt” (Himalayan salt, we presume)

These are real labels that appeared on real buffets at real business events. And every single one points to the same failure: The information your guests are relying on is inconsistent, unverified and created at the last minute. It's not helping them decide if a food is safe to eat. And often, with such ambiguous information, guests decide not to eat at all.

These are not isolated incidents. I know of two convention center properties — different cities, same parent company — that responded to allergen accommodation questions in completely different ways. One told a planner outright, "We do not feed people with celiac disease. You will need to find food for them on your own." The other took a different stance: "We will not label our food for liability reasons, but we will place chefs at each station to answer questions."

The second approach sounds more reasonable until you try it. At a recent event, the buffet had no signage at all. When I asked a server what was in the soup, she didn't know. She pointed me to the chef. He confirmed he'd made it fresh that morning — but couldn't remember all of the ingredients.

For us planners, it's a constant tug-of-war: You push for accurate labeling, venues worry about liability or workload, and the buffet opens anyway. For someone with a food allergy, celiac disease or another dietary need, that gap isn't just confusing — it's dangerous.

The new labeling laws: California goes first

On Oct. 13, 2025, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 68, the Allergen Disclosure for Dining Experiences (ADDE) Act, into law. Named for Addie Lao, a 9-year-old food-allergy advocate who coauthored the bill with her mother, Robyn, and championed by the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America, it is the first U.S. law to require written allergen disclosure on restaurant menus. 

Taking effect July 1, SB 68 requires any food facility already required to provide menu labeling under federal law — primarily chain restaurants with 20 or more locations — to disclose in writing the nine major food allergens for each menu item.

For events, the law applies to the food-service operator, not to the organizer who contracts with them. When asked how inspectors will evaluate compliance at catered events, California's Department of Public Health was clear: Inspectors will look for the same core compliance elements they evaluate in traditional restaurant settings. These requirements include:

• Written allergen information must be available and accessible at the point of ordering or selecting food — through printed menus, buffet labels, event-menu packets or such digital formats as QR-code-linked menus.
• Allergen disclosures must reflect the ingredients used in each menu item accurately, based on information the food facility knows or reasonably should know.
• A consistent process for determining allergen content must be in place, such as ingredient-tracking, supplier documentation and internal allergen reference tools.
• Event-specific formats — buffets, plated meals, stations — must align with the facility's allergen-disclosure practices and cannot omit required information simply because a food is presented in a nontraditional format.

Amanda Bloom, executive director of the California Conference of Directors of Environmental Health, said its Food Safety Policy Committee is working to standardize implementation across its 60 member agencies. The intent is partnership, not punishment. Fines will run $500 to $2,500 per violation, but inspectors are expected to prioritize education during the initial rollout.

Beyond California: A national wave begins

Other states have passed or are working on food-labeling laws.

Michigan's House Bill 5402, introduced last December, applies to all food-service permit holders offering unpackaged food — with no chain-size threshold. It requires written notice of the major food allergens for each menu item, in formats such as menus, placards, signage and digital menus. 

Democratic State Rep. Brenda Carter introduced the bill after watching her husband — who is allergic to shellfish and iodine — navigate catered events with no information to guide him. "He literally has to back away from a lot of food because he doesn't know how it's prepared," she told me, "and there's nothing on the menu that tells him."

New Jersey's state senate bill SB 3394, introduced Feb. 9, would require food-service businesses to provide clearly written allergen information for each menu item, with no chain-size threshold.

In Illinois, SB 1288, which went into effect on Jan. 1, requires all certified food-service sanitation managers to complete training on celiac disease and cross-contact prevention. Two additional Illinois bills — HB 4686 and SB 3305 — would amend the state's Food Handling Regulation Enforcement Act to require allergen disclosure on menus for the top nine allergens. Both have been referred to committee.

Missouri HB 3446, introduced Feb. 26, targets businesses that operate permanent food-service facilities with commercial cooking equipment, and that prepare multiple entrées for sale, requiring written notification of major allergens in the same format as California's SB 68.

Currently in committee, Ohio HB 364 would require food-service operators to denote specified allergens on their menus — a broad standard that would be applied at the license level.

Meanwhile, Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Mississippi, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Utah (plus Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa and the Northern Mariana Islands) already have adopted the 2022 U.S. FDA Food Code, which recommends allergen labeling for unpackaged and bulk foods, but most of the states lack standard enforcement or education around the particulars.

What this means for planners and operators is that the language is on the books in these destinations, but most operators don't know it and inspectors aren't yet checking for it — yet. When active legislation inevitably passes, compliance won't be optional.

Europe is ahead of the curve

U.S. states are not writing this playbook from scratch. Europe has been living it for more than a decade.

Regulation 1169/2011 of the European Union and Natasha's Law in the United Kingdom have required written information across food service for years covering 14 allergens, as well as full ingredient and allergen labeling for prepackaged foods.

Caroline Benjamin, director of Food Allergy Aware in the United Kingdom, has spent more than 10 years training hospitality teams on these requirements. She describes the impact as genuinely transformative: "EU1169 and Natasha's Law have improved transparency and consistency in allergen communication, reduced ambiguity for consumers, and increased accountability across the food-supply chain. Over the past decade, there has been a meaningful cultural shift in how seriously allergen management is regarded — especially in hospitality and high-risk environments like schools and hospitals."

But she is equally clear that the laws alone haven't solved everything. Gaps remain in practical implementation, particularly around staff training, cross-contact control, and communication between the kitchen and the front of the house.

For events specifically, Anita Macdonald, deputy marketing manager at Meet Cambridge and leader of the Managing Dietary Requirements at Events task force for the Association of British Professional Conference Organisers, sees the same mix of progress and gaps. Legislation has driven significant change, but, she says, "Consistency in implementation remains a challenge — particularly across complex events with multiple suppliers."

For U.S. planners watching the new laws being built, the U.K. experience offers two clear lessons: Written allergen laws do change culture for the better, but implementation is uneven, especially at large, multisupplier events. July 1 in California — the effective date of any new state law — will not be the finish line. It will be the starting point for a multiyear process of tightening systems, training teams, and aligning expectations between organizers, venues and guests.

Getting the labels right

The mozzarella skewer marked “No Dairy Added,” the bacon and egg croissant labeled “Dairy & Gluten Free, Non Vegan, Vegetari,” the “Human Layer Salt” — they're not just funny screenshots. They all point to the same underlying failure: There is no reliable process for getting from ingredients to labels.

"The allergen is not the problem — the process is," says Catherine Marshall of Nutritics, a food-data management software. "How are food-service companies identifying allergens, noting them on menu items, and communicating that information to servers and guests?"

Shandee Chernow, founder and CEO of CertiStar, a food-allergy technology company, who lives with anaphylactic food allergies herself, shares an enthusiasm for California's SB 68, but expresses cautions in equal measure. "Any law that pushes restaurants toward written allergen information should be celebrated — but it doesn't solve the whole problem," she says. "Menus change, suppliers change, cross-contact is real, and people react to far more than the Top 9 [allergens]." She wants to see food-service companies using dynamic food-data management systems that identify all ingredients, paired with real operational controls in the kitchen, on labels and in front-of-the-house education.

Get allergy information from your guests — and act on it

Here's the core issue for planners. At a catered event, the person who ordered the food is you. The person eating it is an attendee you might never have met. There is no direct line of communication between the guest with the allergy and the chef who prepared the meal. That disconnect is exactly why written allergen disclosure at the point of service is essential.

Food-service attorney Ryan Gembala put it bluntly on episode #261 of my Eating at a Meeting podcast: "If you know it, you own it." Once any employee knows of a guest's allergy, the laws will treat the entire establishment as on notice. That's why he trains clients to build a chain-reaction process — from the first person who hears about the allergy, through the kitchen, to the person who delivers the plate — so nothing falls through the cracks.

Tracy Stuckrath, CSEP, CMM, CFPM, is the founder of Thrive! Meetings & Events and host of the Eating at a Meeting podcast. Her site hosts a full state-by-state allergen-disclosure legislation guide, a compliance checklist, and resources for the meetings industry.