Guide
Allergens in peanut butter
Peanut butter is peanuts. Peanuts are an allergen in their own right — they are not tree nuts. Emphasise peanut. Some brands add soya lecithin or sugar; the peanut is always there.
Reviewed against official guidance.SourcesNot legal advice.
The usual pattern
Crunchy and smooth are the same allergen. Powdered peanut butter used in protein pots is still peanut. Satay sauce built on peanut butter is peanut plus whatever else is in the sauce.
What to check in peanut butter
| What you see | What it means on a PPDS label |
|---|---|
| Peanuts | Peanuts — not tree nuts |
| Some stabilised butters | Soya lecithin |
| Chocolate peanut spreads | Often milk and soya as well |
| Tree-nut butters | A different allergen — do not share a label |
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
Peanuts, salt.
Where it shows up
Satay, cookies, flapjacks, smoothie pots and some vegan sauces.
Peanut and tree nuts on one line
Do not write nuts for peanuts. The customer avoiding cashews and the customer avoiding peanuts are not the same person. Name peanut.
A peanut-free sunflower-seed butter is not a like-for-like label. Change the ingredients list.
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 peanuts tree nuts?
Does a small swirl of peanut butter count?
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