Allergens on a Shopify Product Page: Emphasise the EU's 14

If you sell food into the EU, your ingredient list can’t be a plain run of text. Under Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011, the allergens in it have to stand out from the other ingredients. On a Shopify product page that usually ends up as hand-bolded words in the description, or a photo of the pack, and neither stays consistent for long.

This guide covers how the regulation asks you to emphasise allergens in the ingredient list, what that looks like on a real ingredient list, where small food shops usually slip, and how to keep it consistent across every product page without touching theme code.

Written by the StoreFleet team. The first draft was AI-assisted and a person reviewed it. This is general information, not legal advice, and following it does not guarantee compliance. Points marked (verify) are ones we have not checked line by line. Check them against the current consolidated text of Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011 on EUR-Lex, or with your food authority or a qualified adviser, before you rely on them.

What the regulation asks for

As we read the text:

• The allergens are listed in Annex II. Annex II names the 14 substances or products that cause allergies or intolerances: cereals containing gluten, crustaceans, eggs, fish, peanuts, soybeans, milk, nuts, celery, mustard, sesame seeds, sulphur dioxide and sulphites, lupin and molluscs. “Cereals containing gluten” and “nuts” are groups, and Annex II names the cereals and nuts that belong to them (verify). Sulphites count above a threshold of 10 mg/kg or 10 mg/litre, expressed as SO2 (verify).
• They must be emphasised in the ingredient list. Article 21 says the allergen is indicated in the list of ingredients with a clear reference to its name in Annex II, and emphasised through a typeset that clearly sets it apart from the rest of the list, for example by font, style or background colour. Bold is the common choice, but the regulation does not require bold specifically.
• Online, before purchase. Article 14 covers distance selling: the mandatory food information, except the best-before or use-by date, has to be available before the purchase is concluded. For a web shop, that means the product page, not only the label in the parcel.

Exemptions for particular foods, and how national rules apply to unpacked food, are outside this guide. Check them for your own products (verify). For the wider picture, see our guide to EU allergen and food information for online food shops.

Before and after: what “emphasised” looks like

A typical product page, before:

Ingredients: wheat flour, sugar, butter, eggs, hazelnuts, salt, emulsifier: lecithin (soya)

The same list with the allergens emphasised, after:

Ingredients: wheat flour, sugar, butter (milk), eggs, hazelnuts, salt, emulsifier: lecithin (soya)

What changed:

• Wheat flour. The allergen is the cereal, so “wheat” is what stands out. Some labels bold the whole ingredient name; either way, pick one rule and apply it to every product (verify).
• Butter. Butter is made from milk, but the word “milk” is not in the name. Adding “(milk)” makes the reference to the Annex II name clear. Whether your national authority expects that for butter, cream or cheese is worth checking (verify).
• Lecithin (soya). Allergens hidden in additives and compound ingredients count too. The source goes in brackets and is emphasised.
• Sugar and salt. They are not on the Annex II list, so they stay plain.

To try the same before and after on one of your own lists, run it through the free EU allergen checker, which shows the Annex II allergens it finds in bold.

If a product has no ingredient list at all, Article 21 asks for the word “Contains” followed by the allergen instead (verify).

Where small food shops slip

• Bold on some products, not others. When every product description is formatted by hand, one missed word on one product is the usual failure.
• Formatting lost on the way. Ingredient text copied from a supplier sheet or a spreadsheet arrives as plain text, and the emphasis has to be added again.
• Allergens only in an image. A photo of the pack can’t be searched, read by a screen reader or copied by a shopper checking one ingredient.
• Compound ingredients missed. Chocolate, sauces, spice mixes and additives often carry milk, soya, mustard or celery.
• A recipe change not carried over. A new supplier or a new ingredient can add an allergen. The product page has to change before the new batch is sold.
• Emphasis outside the list. A separate allergen line elsewhere on the page does not replace emphasis in the ingredient list itself.

Step by step: emphasise allergens on every product page

1. Collect the exact ingredient wording. Take it from your recipe or the supplier specification, starting with your best sellers.
2. Check each ingredient against Annex II. Go through compound ingredients and additives too, not only the top-level list.
3. Decide on one rule. For example: emphasise the allergen word, and add the Annex II name in brackets when the ingredient name doesn’t show it. Write the rule down so whoever edits the next product follows it.
4. Emphasise inside the ingredient list. Use bold (or another clearly different style) on the allergen words in the list itself.
5. Keep the rest of the label next to it. The nutrition table and the name and address of the food business operator belong on the same page. Our Q&A on what a food product page must show lists the full set.
6. Check the live page on desktop and mobile. Make sure the emphasis survives your theme and nothing is cut off inside a tab or accordion.
7. Re-check when a recipe changes. Update the product page before the new batch goes on sale.

If you sell in more than one language, the allergens need emphasis in every translation. See allergens in translated product pages.

Doing it with a form instead of code

Etiketto: EU Nutrition Labels is a Shopify app for food shops selling into the EU. It shows the food information Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011 requires on your product pages: a nutrition table, ingredients with allergens in bold, and the operator.

For the ingredient list, it works like this:

• You mark the allergens. In the ingredient list you wrap each allergen in asterisks, such as oat flakes, honey, *butter* (*milk*), sunflower seeds, and the product page shows “oat flakes, honey, butter (milk), sunflower seeds”. The app does not detect allergens; only the words you mark are emphasised.
• One form per product. Ingredients, nutrition values and the operator are filled in on one screen for each product.
• One block, no Liquid. You add the Food information block to the product template of an Online Store 2.0 theme in the theme editor. It renders plain text, not an image, so shoppers, search engines and screen readers can read it.

The label itself is free. The values and wording come from you, and the app shows them as entered, so whether your labelling is right for your products stays your responsibility. For a walkthrough of the block, see nutrition table and bold allergens without Liquid.

Start with one product

Take your best-selling product, check its ingredients against Annex II, mark the allergens and look at the live page on your phone. When it reads right, apply the same rule to the rest of the catalogue. To show the nutrition table, ingredients with bold allergens and operator details on your product pages, install Etiketto: EU Nutrition Labels from the Shopify App Store.