Guide
Allergens in hummus
Shop and kitchen hummus usually contains sesame from tahini. Chickpeas themselves are not one of the 14 allergens. Some recipes also add soya oil or a garlic paste with sulphites.
Reviewed against official guidance.SourcesNot legal advice.
The usual pattern
A typical hummus is chickpeas, tahini, lemon, garlic and oil. The allergen is almost always the tahini. A tahini-free hummus is possible and must be labelled from that recipe, not from a generic hummus card.
What to check in hummus
| What you see | What it means on a PPDS label |
|---|---|
| Tahini | Sesame |
| Chickpeas | Not an Annex II allergen |
| Some garlic purées | Sulphites |
| Flavoured hummus | Roasted pepper, pesto or chilli pastes add their own allergens |
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
Cooked chickpeas, tahini (sesame), rapeseed oil, lemon juice, garlic, salt.
Where it shows up
Deli pots, wraps, mezze boxes and sandwich spreads.
A pesto hummus on the plain label
Pesto adds milk and sometimes tree nuts. The plain chickpea-and-tahini label cannot be used on the green tub.
Oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes stirred into hummus can add sulphites.
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
Are chickpeas an allergen?
Can I omit tahini and drop sesame?
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