Natasha's Law came into force in England in October 2021. It changed how food businesses must label prepacked for direct sale (PPDS) food — the sandwiches, salads, wraps and cakes you pack on site and sell to guests who choose them themselves.
If you run a café, deli counter, bakery or restaurant with grab-and-go, this is not optional. Guests with allergies rely on that label. Getting it wrong is a compliance risk and, more importantly, a safety risk.
What Natasha's Law covers
Natasha's Law applies to prepacked for direct sale food. That means food that is:
- Packed before being ordered or selected by the customer
- Packed on the same premises (or from a vehicle or stall) where it is sold
- Sold to the consumer without further packing
Classic examples: a packaged sandwich in a fridge, a salad pot behind a counter glass, a cake slice in a clear box on a display.
It does not replace allergen duties for food served from an open kitchen or plated to order. Those still need accurate allergen information — just not in the same full ingredients-list format on a pack.
What must appear on the label
For PPDS items you need:
- The name of the food
- A full ingredients list
- Allergens emphasised within that list (typically bold)
The 14 regulated allergens must be clear wherever they appear as ingredients. Guests should not have to ask staff to decode a vague "contains allergens" note.
Why it exists
The law is named after Natasha Ednan-Laperouse, who died after an allergic reaction to sesame in a baguette that did not list sesame on the packaging. The point is simple: if food is packed and sold for self-selection, the pack itself must carry complete ingredient and allergen information.
Venues that treat labelling as a last-minute sticker job tend to drift out of date when recipes change. Venues that treat the recipe as the source of truth stay safer.
Common café and restaurant pitfalls
- Packing earlier in the day — if you wrap items before service, they are often PPDS even if you "could" make them to order
- Shared recipes, different sites — one kitchen swaps a dressing; labels elsewhere still show the old ingredients
- Emphasis missing — allergens listed but not highlighted in the ingredients text
- Name too vague — "Chef's special wrap" without enough detail for the guest to know what they are buying
How digital menus help
A live menu will not replace a PPDS label on the pack. It can, however, keep the underlying recipe and allergen data accurate so labels and guest menus do not diverge.
Quiteful is building PPDS labels from the same recipe record as the guest menu. When a supplier changes a sauce, you update the recipe once — then both the digital menu and the label content can stay aligned.
Practical next steps
- List every item you pack before the guest chooses it
- Confirm each has a full ingredients list with allergens emphasised
- Tie every label back to a maintained recipe, not a spreadsheet nobody opens
- Train the team to stop sale when a recipe changes until labels are updated
Natasha's Law is not about perfect paperwork for its own sake. It is about giving allergic guests the same clarity on a packed sandwich that they would expect from any other food label.
See how Quiteful is approaching PPDS labels from the same recipe data that powers your live menu.