CHICAGO, October 14, 2025 —California has become the first state in the nation to mandate the disclosure of common allergens as part of its menu-labeling requirements.
The obligation becomes binding next July on food-away-from-home outlets that are part of a chain with at least 20 branches nationwide. The heads-up that an item contains one of the nine most common allergens must be delivered either in print running adjacent to the selection’s menu listening or via a smartphone-readable QR code.
If an establishment opts for a QR presentation, it must also have available a separate printed listing of the menu options containing any of the nine allergy triggers. That provision is intended as a fallback method for protecting customers who have a food allergy but lack the ability to read a QR code.
The only excepted outlets are “compact mobile food operations,” presumably meaning food trucks, or “nonpermanent food facilities,” presumably referring to pop-up restaurants.
The law also breaks new ground for foodservice outlets by extending the list of common food allergens to include sesame. California operators will also have to flag any item containing milk, eggs, fish, shellfish, tree nuts, peanuts, wheat, and soybeans.
Oils made from any of those items must also be flagged.
The legislation was signed into law Monday by Gov. Gavin Newsom. It is one of two measures enacted by California in less than a week that hold profound implications for the food-away-from-home business.
The other bill, known as the Real Food, Healthy Kids Act, sets a multi-phased process for eliminating what the state intends to call “ultra-processed foods of concern” from school foodservice programs. Phase One is defining “ultra-processed foods,” or UPFs, a step that’s already been taken. The next scheduled move is designating which UPFs merit the designation of an ultra-processed food of concern, which would then be removed from cafeterias serving youngsters in grade 12 and below.
By 2035, food manufacturers would be prohibited by law from even offering the designated items to the state’s roughly 13,000 schools.
The activity on the West Coast comes as food-away-from-home operators across the nation await a federal definition of ultra-processed foods, a major step in the Trump Administration’s Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) initiative.
The U.S. Department of Health & Human Services has yet to say how it will wield that definition to promote the health of American children. But a number of other moves were spelled out in a report issued by the department last month as its blueprint for bolstering the health of children.
A potential controversy triggered by the allergy bill, or SB 68, is its stipulation that schools are unlikely to get funding from the state to comply.
As Managing Editor for IFMA The Food Away from Home Association, Romeo is responsible for generating the group's news and feature content. He brings more than 40 years of experience in covering restaurants to the position.
Cover image courtesy: Closed Loop Project