Allergen Matrix Template for the 9 Major Allergens

What this is for

A server gets asked "is there sesame in the burger?" on a Saturday night. The honest answer lives in three places: the recipe, the label on the bun bag, and the head of whoever did the prep that morning. Walking back to the line to ask is slow, and guessing is how people end up in the hospital. An allergen matrix puts every dish on one grid against the 9 major food allergens the FDA recognizes, so anyone on shift can look it up in ten seconds and give the same answer the chef would.

The grid has a row for each dish and a column for each allergen: milk, eggs, fish, crustacean shellfish, tree nuts, peanuts, wheat, soybeans and sesame. Sesame is the newest of the nine, added from 1 January 2023, and it is the one most often missing from older charts. Each cell is ✓ for "contains", ? for "may contain" (a shared fryer, a supplier warning on the label) or blank for "not present". A Notes column at the end is for detail the grid cannot hold: which tree nut, which shellfish, or "can be made without the aioli". At the top are boxes for the menu or version, who checked it and the date.

The Excel file is where you build and maintain it. The Matrix tab has a ✓/? dropdown in every allergen cell, and ✓ cells turn red so the grid can be read at arm's length. A Count column adds up the ✓ marks for each dish, and a Last checked date sits at the end of the row. Print the tab, or the letter-size PDF, for the kitchen and the host stand.

How to fill it in

1. List every item on the menu in the Dish column, one per row, including sides, sauces served on the side, desserts, kids' dishes and specials. If a sauce goes on several dishes, some kitchens give it its own row as well, so it only has to be worked out once.
2. Work through each dish from the recipe card, ingredient by ingredient, with the product labels in front of you. Go further than the obvious ones: the marinade, the dressing, the oil it is cooked in, the butter it is finished with, the bun, the garnish. Read both the "Contains" line, where there is one, and the full ingredient list.
3. Mark ✓ in the column for every allergen the dish contains. In the Excel file, pick it from the dropdown; the cell turns red. Watch for the ones that hide: Worcestershire sauce and Caesar dressing usually contain anchovy (fish), soy sauce usually contains wheat as well as soy, pesto may contain pine nuts or other tree nuts plus cheese, and many buns and crackers carry sesame.
4. Mark ? where the allergen is not an ingredient but could get in: fries cooked in the same fryer as breaded shrimp, a "may contain peanuts" warning on the chocolate, a shared slicer for cheese and deli meat. Be honest about the fryer. It is the most common cross-contact point on a line.
5. For tree nuts and crustacean shellfish, write which one in Notes ("almond", "shrimp"). A guest allergic to walnuts may eat almonds, and they will ask. Use Notes as well for substitutions the kitchen can reliably do.
6. Look at the Count column. A dish showing 0 is either genuinely free of all nine or has not been checked properly. Go back and confirm the zeros; they are the ones staff will lean on hardest.
7. Fill in Menu / version, Checked by and the Date at the top of the printed copy, and the Last checked date on each row in Excel. Delete the EXAMPLE row (the Chicken Caesar salad) before you print.
8. Update the row the day a recipe changes or a supplier sends a substitute brand. That is when matrices go wrong. Checking labels at the back door on the receiving log catches most substitutions before they reach the line.
9. Make sure every server and cook knows where the matrix is and has been shown how to read it, and record that on the food safety training record. A chart nobody has looked at does not answer questions.

A filled-in example

Common mistakes

• Working from memory instead of labels. The bun you bought last year did not have sesame; the one the supplier switched you to in March might. Every ✓ should trace back to a recipe card or a label.
• Forgetting the fryer. A dish with no allergens of its own can still pick them up from shared oil, and "no shellfish" on fries cooked with shrimp is a wrong answer.
• Letting specials go on the menu without a row. They change most often and they are the dishes staff know least about.
• Putting the matrix up once and never updating it. An out-of-date chart is worse than none, because people trust it. Date every copy and reprint when anything changes.
• Leaving tree nuts or shellfish as a bare ✓. The guest will ask which one, and the server will have to walk to the kitchen anyway.