Guide
Allergens in goat’s cheese
Goat’s cheese is milk. Sheep’s cheese and buffalo mozzarella are milk too. UK allergen rules cover milk from those animals, not only cow’s milk. Emphasise milk on the salad, tart or sandwich that contains them.
Reviewed against official guidance.SourcesNot legal advice.
The usual pattern
The cheese is milk, salt and culture. A soft log, a hard goat’s cheese and feta made from sheep’s milk are the same allergen. A vegan feta is not milk — it is often soya or coconut, and needs that label instead.
What to check in goat’s cheese
| What you see | What it means on a PPDS label |
|---|---|
| Goat’s milk | Milk |
| Sheep’s milk feta | Milk |
| Buffalo mozzarella | Milk |
| Vegan cheese | Often soya — not milk, if it contains no dairy |
How to write it on the label
PPDS food needs the name of the food and a full ingredients list, with the 14 allergens emphasised every time they appear. The Food Standards Agency’s PPDS guidance is the practical reference. A typical ingredients fragment looks like this — yours must follow the specification of the product you actually use.
Example fragment
Goat’s milk cheese (milk).
Where it shows up
Salads, tarts, wraps, pastry parcels and packed cheese boards.
Writing goat’s cheese and not milk
The style name is not the allergen name. Emphasise milk.
Lactose content varies by cheese. The emphasis is still milk.
Specification first
Brands differ. Treat this page as the usual pattern, then match the label to the tub, bag or recipe in front of you.
Questions
Is goat’s cheese a dairy allergen?
Is feta always cow’s milk?
Official sources
Everything on this page traces back to these. Where they and we disagree, they are right — tell us and we'll fix it.
- Introduction to allergen labelling for PPDS foodFood Standards Agency / GOV.UK
- Labelling guidance for prepacked for direct sale (PPDS) food productsFood Standards Agency / GOV.UK
- Food allergen labelling and information requirements technical guidanceFood Standards Agency / GOV.UK