Allergen & dietary labels

How it works

1. 1 Add an item and paste or type its ingredients, in French too if you have them. Every word that brings one of Canada's priority allergens is marked as you type, and the vague ones ("nuts", "fish sauce", "flour") get a question until it's clear which.
2. 2 Check what it found, add a "may contain" for anything shared equipment could bring in, and pick the dietary tags. It won't call an item gluten-free, dairy-free or nut-free if its own label says otherwise.
3. 3 Print labels on sheets the size of Avery 5164 or 5163, with dates, storage and weight; print an allergen chart for the counter; or copy the lines for your online menu.

Free, with no account. Ingredients are read on this device, and nothing you type is sent anywhere until you download. If you ask it to, this device remembers your menu for next time. Nothing is kept on ours.

Good to know

Is this food-safety advice?

No. It's help with labelling, from the CFIA's allergen labelling page (en français) and Health Canada's as they stood on October 7, 2026. It can only find what's in the words you give it, so check every supplier's label, sub-ingredients too. Where a reading needs checking it says (verify).

Which allergens does it look for?

Canada's priority food allergens: eggs, milk, mustard, peanuts, crustaceans and molluscs, fish, sesame, soy, added sulphites (10 ppm or more), tree nuts, and wheat and triticale, with gluten from barley, oats, rye, triticale and wheat. A Contains statement names each one, and tree nuts, fish and shellfish by kind: almonds, salmon, shrimp. Coconut and nutmeg aren't counted as tree nuts (verify).

Can something with oats be gluten-free?

Only with oats grown and handled to keep wheat, barley and rye out, and sold as gluten-free, so it asks before it lets you say so. Gluten-free generally means 20 ppm of gluten or less (Health Canada's position; verify).

When should a label say "may contain"?

When there's a real chance of cross-contact you can't prevent, like a shared fryer or flour in the air. It's not a blanket warning, and it never stands in for keeping allergens apart. A "may contain" also keeps the gluten-free, dairy-free and nut-free tags off an item, since someone avoiding that allergen can't count on it.

What do the dates on a label mean?

Food packaged where it's sold generally shows the day it was packaged and how long it keeps, or a best-before date, in a code that reads the same in both languages: 26 OC 07 is October 7, 2026. Anything that needs the fridge or freezer says so (CFIA date markings; verify).

Do labels need English and French?

Generally yes, for packaged food, with exceptions for some local and test-market foods (verify). Labels print in English, French or both. The allergen statements and tags translate themselves; an ingredient list prints in each language you've written it in, and the page points out any you haven't.

How small can the writing be?

The usual minimum for the required words is a lowercase x of 1.6 mm (verify). Labels start at 8.7 pt, which gives about that, and only shrink when everything won't fit. If one does, the preview says so: use the larger label, or shorten the ingredients.

Do I need labels for food I serve?

Food made and served on the spot generally doesn't need a label (verify), but guests with allergies still ask. The allergen chart and the online menu lines give everyone the same answer, from the same recipes.