Last modified on July 25, 2026 • 7 min read • Bookmark for later

A practical guide for travellers managing coeliac disease, food allergies, intolerances, or any combination, across Australia and New Zealand.

Good news, both Australia and New Zealand have one of the most detailed allergen labelling systems in the world, substances that must be declared, a strict format for how they’re written, and separate, stricter standards for the words “gluten free.” Once you know how it works it’s honestly one of the easier places to eat safely, but its different enough from other places that it’s worth a proper explanation.

I’m a kiwi and I’ve eaten my way through Auckland, Coromandel, Rotorua, Queenstown, Adelaide and Melbourne since going gluten and dairy free, and while my own experience is with those two restrictions specifically, the labelling system underneath applies whatever you’re avoiding. Read on to learn how it works so you can travel and eat with confidence.

The Allergens That Must Be Declared

Under Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ), packaged food must clearly declare a specific list of allergens whenever they’re present, regardless of how much or how little is used. The list includes:

  • Peanuts
  • Tree nuts, and each one has to be named individually, almond, Brazil nut, cashew, hazelnut, macadamia, pecan, pine nut, pistachio and walnut all have to be spelled out rather than grouped under “tree nuts”
  • Milk
  • Eggs
  • Fish
  • Crustaceans, such as prawns, crab and lobster
  • Molluscs, such as oysters, mussels, squid and scallops
  • Soy
  • Sesame
  • Lupin, a legume used in some flours and baked goods that isn’t widely known outside the region but is cross-reactive with peanut allergy for some people
  • Sulphites, when added at 10 milligrams per kilogram or more, common in dried fruit, wine and some processed foods
  • Wheat, along with barley, oats and rye specifically when they contain gluten

Source: Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ) Allergen Labelling

That’s a wider net than many countries so if you’re managing a nut, egg allergy, or something like lupin or sulphites, Australian and New Zealand labels might be some of the easiest to navigate.

Plain English Labelling: What “Bold” and “Contains” Actually Mean

Packaging in New Zealand showing how the allergens appear

Here, allergens have to be written in specific, plain English terms, no hiding milk behind “casein” or “whey,” no grouping nuts together as one word. Each allergen appears in bold, every time it shows up in the ingredient list, including if it’s inside something like a stock or a sauce.

As well as this most products carry a separate bolded summary statement starting with the word “Contains,” for example “Contains: milk, soy, sulphites.” You can see this on the Tom & Luke’s packaging to the left. It sits near the ingredient list, it’s designed to be easy to check.

Gluten Free Zero Tolerance

Gluten sits inside the same regulations but “gluten free” as a claim on a label has much stricter rules than you might be used to. Under Australian and New Zealand food law, a product can only be labelled “gluten free” if it contains no detectable gluten whatsoever. There’s no allowable trace threshold the way there is in Europe or the US, where gluten free typically means under 20 parts per million. Here, if a lab can detect it, the product can’t wear the label.

In practice this means a “gluten free” sticker on a supermarket shelf or a menu is doing more work than the same words might overseas. It’s one of the reasons both countries are considered easier than average for coeliac travellers, once you’re looking at that specific claim.

What About the Oats?

Internationally, the gluten free status of oats can be controversial. Some countries allow oats to be labelled gluten free provided they’re grown, harvested and processed to avoid contamination with wheat. Others treat oats as a contamination risk by default, since oat crops are very often grown alongside or rotated with wheat.

Australia and New Zealand fall into the second camp. Neither country currently allows oats to be labelled gluten free, full stop, regardless of how the oats were grown or processed. Coeliac Australia has more details on the reasoning which is worth a read.

What this means in practice: oat milk in your coffee isn’t a gluten free swap here the way it might be at home. If you’re coeliac or highly sensitive, ask for cow, soy, almond, or especially in Australia a lactose-free option instead. It’s a small adjustment, but it’s the one detail that catches out even experienced travellers who’ve done this in a dozen other countries.

A delicious and safe bagel in Melbourne

What does “May Contain” really mean?

You’ll also see “may contain traces of,” or “may be present,” on packaging for any of the allergens on the list above, not just gluten. This is a voluntary statement, also called precautionary allergen labelling, and it exists because manufacturers have identified a genuine cross-contact risk they couldn’t fully eliminate through cleaning or scheduling.

The important part to consider though, it is voluntary so its absence doesn’t mean the product is safer. A manufacturer might not have added the statement, but the risk is still there. Treat it as one input, not the whole picture, and if you’re highly sensitive to a particular allergen, the product’s own website or customer service line can be a valuable source of advice regarding the manufacturing process. For example Whittaker’s Chocolate FAQ contains some valuable information you wont find on the packaging.

Menus, Restaurants, and Where the Packaging Rules Stop

All of the above applies to packaged retail food. It doesn’t extend to what comes out of a restaurant kitchen. Once you’re eating out, you’re back to asking the same questions you’d ask anywhere in the world, regardless of what you’re managing, how is this prepared, is there a dedicated fryer or board, what’s in the sauce.

Menu in Australia showing allergen labels

Menus increasingly use shorthand like GF, DF, V, VG, or a specific allergy icon, and halal and kosher options are marked at some venues, but none of that shorthand carries the same legal weight as the packaging declarations above. It’s a helpful pointer, not a guarantee, and staff knowledge does vary from one venue to the next.

Whether a restaurant has labels or not always ask the staff, some restaurants will say they don’t cater to allergens but, most do even when its not labelled. I’ve often found some of the most accomodating places to be ones without labelling on the menu. Like many places your favourite review webistes or apps can be great places to find recommended spots.

Don’t forget to ask questions just like you would at home, so you know that the risk of cross contamination is acceptable to you. On a snowboarding trip to Queenstown, a couple of restaurants said they had gluten free items, however when I enquired further the fryer was shared. One lunch break in Auckland I enquired about a noodle place that had rice gluten free noodles, when I asked questions the water was shared and the broth had soy sauce containing wheat. On both occasions if I hadn’t asked more questions I could have been affected by gluten.

Where to Put This Into Practice

If you’re planning a trip across the region, I’ve put the practical, restaurant-by-restaurant version of all this into three dedicated guides. They’re written from my own experience as a gluten free and dairy free traveller, but the labelling logic above applies underneath whatever you’re managing:

If your combination includes allergies beyond gluten and dairy, the Essentials Travel Pack builds a personalised guide including naturally safe dishes and an allergy card for your restrictions wherever you’re headed.

The Takeaway

Australia and New Zealand’s labelling laws are detailed because they’re built around certainty rather than guesswork. A specific list of allergens has to be declared in plain English, gluten free carries its own stricter zero tolerance standard again, oats sit outside that claim entirely, and none of it extends past the supermarket shelf into the kitchen. Once you know the categories, whatever your combination of restrictions, the region becomes one of the more straightforward places in the world to eat safely.