US Menu Labeling Requirements

The Federal Calorie Rule Applies to Chains of 20 or More

The FDA menu labeling rule lives at 21 CFR 101.11. It defines a “covered establishment” as a restaurant or similar retail food establishment that is part of a chain with 20 or more locations doing business under the same name and offering for sale substantially the same menu items. Franchises count — the regulation says so explicitly, regardless of the type of ownership.

If you are one restaurant, or five, this rule does not apply to you. You may register to be covered voluntarily, but you are not obliged to do anything. That is the single most useful fact on this page and it is the one most often obscured by vendors selling compliance features.

For covered establishments, three things are required on the menu. Calories for each standard menu item, declared adjacent to the name or the price, in type no smaller than the name or price, whichever is smaller. A succinct statement about daily caloric intake, whose wording the regulation supplies: “2,000 calories a day is used for general nutrition advice, but calorie needs vary.” And a statement that more is available: “Additional nutrition information available upon request.” That fuller information — total fat, saturated fat, trans fat, cholesterol, sodium, carbohydrates, fiber, sugars and protein — must exist in writing and be produced when a guest asks.

Your QR Menu Is a Menu Under That Rule

This is the part that catches chains out, and it is not a matter of interpretation. The regulation defines “menu or menu board” as the primary writing of the covered establishment from which a customer makes an order selection — and then lists what that includes: breakfast, lunch and dinner menus, dessert menus, beverage menus, children’s menus, other specialty menus, electronic menus, and menus on the Internet.

Electronic menus and internet menus are named in the definition. So if you are a covered establishment and you replaced your printed menus with a QR code, the page behind that code is a menu for the purposes of the rule. Moving to digital does not move you outside it; if anything it makes compliance more visible, because the page is public and permanently inspectable by anyone with the URL.

The practical consequence is small if you plan for it and annoying if you do not. Calories have to sit adjacent to the item name or price rather than buried in a description or on a separate nutrition page, and both required statements have to appear on the menu itself.

Web Gerek menus carry a calorie field on every item, an ingredients field, and allergen marks, on every plan including free. What we do not do — and will not claim to do — is verify that the numbers you enter are correct. Nutritional accuracy is the operator’s responsibility, and for a covered establishment it is worth having those figures produced by a qualified analysis rather than estimated.

Allergens: What US Law Actually Requires (Less Than You Think)

There is a widespread belief that US restaurants must list allergens per dish. They must not, anywhere. It is worth being precise about why, because the confusion comes from conflating two genuinely different regimes.

FALCPA, the Food Allergen Labeling and Consumer Protection Act of 2004, names eight major allergens — milk, eggs, fish, crustacean shellfish, tree nuts, peanuts, wheat and soybeans. The FASTER Act added sesame as the ninth, effective 1 January 2023. But FALCPA governs packaged food labels. Its requirements expressly do not apply to food placed in a wrapper or container following a customer’s order at the point of purchase, which is what a restaurant does.

State law is where restaurants appear, and what it asks for is not labels. Six states have restaurant allergen legislation — Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Rhode Island and Virginia — and between them they require menu notices asking guests to tell their server about allergies, allergen awareness training for certified food protection managers, and back-of-house posters. Not one requires you to mark which dishes contain what.

So per-dish allergen marks are voluntary in the United States. They are also, in our view, the single highest-value optional thing on a digital menu. A guest with a shellfish allergy currently has to interrogate a server who may be new, busy, or working in their second language; a marked menu answers the question before it is asked. It is a service improvement and a liability reduction, and it costs one afternoon at build time.

Frequently Asked Questions