Mandatory Menu Data: Calories, Allergens, Caffeine and Packaged-Product Labels

Your menu isn't just a list of dishes and prices. Next to every item there's now data that has to be clear to the customer before they order: how many calories the item has, which allergens it contains, how much caffeine if it's a stimulant drink, and a price that's clearly shown and tax-inclusive. All of that is part of the Saudi Food and Drug Authority's requirements for restaurants, on top of price-display and consumer-protection rules, and skipping any one of them turns a routine inspection into a fine you pay for, or worse, puts an allergic customer at real risk. In this guide we walk you through it step by step: where each number comes from, how to work it out yourself, where to show it, and how to keep it consistent across your printed menu, storefront and delivery apps without redoing the work on every channel.

Let's agree on one thing up front: regulations change, and the exact figures and fine print (caffeine limits, the size of a fine, which establishments the calorie rule applies to) are set by the official authority and updated from time to time. Our job here is to show you the shape of the rule and how to turn it into daily work on your menu and system, not to hand you a final number to lean on blindly. Every point with a regulatory angle links to its official source, and we'd rather you go back to it and confirm the details for your own activity, size and city before you print or commit. The idea is that you leave this guide knowing exactly what to do, and where to double-check the numbers, not memorizing a figure that may have changed.

Before You Print Anything: What You Need in Hand

Gathering the data is half the battle. The trip-up usually isn't the rule itself; it's the foundation nobody built before it. Before you even think about printing a menu or entering an item in the system, you need the following in hand:

• Break every item down into its ingredients with fixed quantities per served portion, because calories and allergens are calculated on the portion the customer gets, not the batch in the kitchen. To nail this from the start, see the recipe and food cost guide.
• A trusted source for calorie values, such as an approved nutrition database or lab analysis, not an eyeball estimate or a copy off a random site.
• Spec sheets from your suppliers for any ready-made or packaged product you resell as-is, so you can carry its data accurately instead of guessing.
• A list of every channel you sell through: printed menu, in-store screen, online storefront and delivery apps, because the same data has to appear on all of them with no differences.
• Someone accountable for updating the data whenever a recipe changes or a new item comes in, so the label isn't right today and wrong a month later without anyone noticing.

From Recipe to Compliant Menu: The Steps in Order

The way to finish without chaos is to go in order: build the data once, correctly, at the item level, then publish it to every channel. The common mistake is treating each channel as a separate project, so different numbers end up on the print menu, the storefront and the app, and that in itself is a problem. These eight steps cover the road from recipe to a compliant menu:

1. 1
   Break down every item

   Write out each item's ingredients with per-portion quantities. This is the base you'll build calories and the allergen list on, so keep it accurate from the start because any error here compounds later.

2. 2
   Calculate calories per portion

   Add up the ingredients' calories from your approved source for each item, worked out on the portion you actually serve, not the weight of the whole batch. A fixed portion size is what makes the number correct.

3. 3
   Map the allergens

   For each item, flag the allergens it contains, and watch modifiers and substitutions because they change the ingredients. Shared sauces and oils are a hidden source many people forget.

4. 4
   Flag caffeine drinks

   Identify high-caffeine or added-caffeine drinks and prepare the disclosure and warning required for them per the authority's rules for each type.

5. 5
   Prepare the packaged-product label

   If you sell a wrapped product of your own such as a cake, a box of dates or a bag of roasted coffee, prepare its full nutrition label before it hits the shelf.

6. 6
   Write prices tax-inclusive

   Record each item's price including VAT and show it clearly, because the price the customer sees is the one that binds you. See how to price your items.

7. 7
   Publish to every channel

   Push the same data to the printed menu, the screen, the storefront and the delivery apps. Build your menu once in the system and you publish with one click instead of redoing each channel. Try building your menu inside your system.

8. 8
   Review and update regularly

   Any change to a recipe, supplier or system means data that has to be updated. Put a periodic review in place so an old label doesn't stay on display after the recipe has moved on.

Calories: The Number That Belongs Next to Every Item

The rule in short: you show the calorie value next to every item on the menu, clearly enough for the customer to read before they decide, not hidden on a side sheet or requiring a question. Which establishments the rule applies to, and its exact scope, are set by the Saudi Food and Drug Authority, so go back to them and confirm whether your activity is in or out of scope, because the shape differs between a large multi-branch restaurant and a small cart or seasonal kiosk. Don't assume you're exempt and don't assume you're covered before you check the source itself, because assuming in either direction costs you.

The calculation itself isn't complicated: break the item down and add up its ingredients' calories for the served portion. Two things matter: lean on a trusted source, and calculate on the real portion that reaches the table, not the weight of the batch. And note that any change to the recipe, even a small one like more cheese or a bigger portion, changes the number, so the number is tied to the recipe, not fixed forever. A hypothetical example for a simple burger shows the idea, and you swap in your own ingredients and approved source. And so you don't re-enter the number on every channel, in Loqma you enter calories as a field at the item level, and the same value shows on the digital menu and the storefront and delivery apps automatically instead of typing it four times.

Allergens: A Clear Disclosure, Not a Throwaway Line

Allergens aren't a throwaway warning printed in the smallest font at the bottom of the menu to cover yourself. What's required is a clear disclosure: the customer knows before ordering whether the item contains, or may contain, one of the major allergen families. The commonly recognized families include, for example, gluten-containing cereals, milk, eggs, tree nuts, peanuts, fish and shellfish, soy and sesame. But the approved list exactly and the way you disclose are set by the Gulf standard and the Saudi Food and Drug Authority, so rely on that, not on some generic list off the internet, because the details differ and the list gets updated.

The hardest part of allergens is hidden sources and cross-contact: a frying oil shared between fries and breaded chicken, a sauce with sesame nobody notices, a knife that cuts gluten bread then cuts a salad. And any add-on or substitution the customer asks for changes the ingredients, so the disclosure has to be at the item and modifier level, not just on the base dish. That's why it's best to tie allergen data to the ingredient and modifier level inside the system, so any change reflects on the label the customer sees without anyone forgetting to update it by hand. That link is the difference between a disclosure you trust and one that's right on paper and wrong at the table.

• Screen every item against the major families the standard defines, and don't stop at the visible ingredient.
• Disclose on the menu itself, not 'ask the cashier', because the disclosure is your responsibility, not the customer's.
• Track hidden sources: sauces, shared oils, and cross-contact in prep tools.
• Update the allergen flag whenever a modifier, substitution or item recipe changes.
• Train your team to answer allergen questions with the same accurate answer every time, not each person improvising.

Caffeine and Energy Drinks: Disclosure and Warning Aren't Optional

If you serve coffee, energy drinks or any drink with added caffeine, there are specific requirements to disclose caffeine content and to place certain warnings, and sometimes limits tied to age or to energy drinks specifically. The exact figures and limits, such as what counts as high and the wording of the required warning, are set by the Saudi Food and Drug Authority, and we won't guess them for you here because they change and differ by drink type. The rule here is stricter than most, so don't lift a caffeine number from a foreign source and put it on your menu; the reference is the authority.

In practice: write out your drinks list, flag the ones with high or added caffeine, and separate them from the regular drinks. Cafes in particular carry a bigger share of this requirement because most of their list is stimulants, and you can see how to manage that side within a POS system for cafes. The point is that the disclosure and warning show somewhere the customer sees before ordering, not after they've drunk it and come back to ask. And if you have a drink whose recipe changes on request, like extra espresso shots, make your disclosure account for the amount changing with the add-on.

The Packaged-Product Label: If You Sell Anything Pre-Wrapped

If your activity goes beyond dine-in service and you sell a wrapped product that leaves with the customer, like a boxed cake, a pack of dates, a bag of roasted coffee or wrapped pastries, that product falls under packaged-product label requirements, which are separate from menu data. The nutrition label for a packaged product has a Gulf standard that defines what must be written on it, in what order, and how clearly and in which language. This stage usually arrives the moment you start selling your products on the shelf or online, and the rule quietly shifts from a menu rule to a packaging rule without you noticing.

The idea is that the customer can learn everything about the product from its label without asking anyone, because they buy it and walk off with it. The data the label usually requires under the Gulf standard and the authority includes the following, but check the official text for the approved details and order, because this is an illustrative list, not an official copy:

• The product name and its true nature, without misleading.
• The ingredient list ordered in descending order by weight.
• The net content, whether weight or volume.
• The production date and expiry date.
• Storage and keeping conditions.
• The manufacturer or importer name and country of origin.
• The nutrition facts panel for calories and nutritional values.
• Allergens clearly highlighted within the ingredients.

VAT-Inclusive Price Display: Consumer Protection, Not Just Numbers

Price display isn't a small detail: the customer has to see the price clearly and in full before deciding, and the displayed price is the one that binds you, not a number you surprise them with at payment. In Saudi Arabia the price shown to the end consumer is inclusive of VAT, meaning the number on the menu is what the customer pays, not a number you add tax to at the till. Consumer protection and price-advertising rules sit with the Ministry of Commerce, and the price being tax-inclusive sits with the Zakat, Tax and Customs Authority, so each body owns its part of the rule.

Because the price is tax-inclusive, the tax is extracted from the total, not added on top. So if you advertise an item at a given price, the system splits it into net and tax internally at invoice time, and the customer pays exactly the advertised number. A hypothetical example with clean numbers shows the idea below, at the rate in force that the authority announces. And because prices in Loqma are tax-inclusive and the system extracts the tax automatically with every invoice, the price the customer sees is the same one that comes out on the tax invoice with no awkward gaps; more detail in the e-invoicing guide for restaurants.

Beyond tax inclusion, consumer-protection rules expect the price to be displayed and legible for every item, and that there are no surprise charges appearing at payment without being announced up front. If you add a service charge or any extra amount, it has to be clear to the customer before ordering, not after. The easiest way to get that right: make the charge a named line on the menu and the same named line on the invoice, so what the customer saw before ordering is what they read after paying.

What You End Up With

When you're done, you have a menu where every item carries a calorie number worked out per portion, an allergen disclosure tied to ingredients and modifiers, caffeine disclosure and a warning for the drinks that need it, a full label for any packaged product you sell, and prices that are tax-inclusive and clearly displayed on every channel. That doesn't just get you past inspection with less worry, it makes the customer trust you at first glance, because they see a restaurant that knows what it serves and says so plainly.

And most importantly the data is consistent: the same calorie number, the same allergen disclosure and the same price on the printed menu, the storefront and the delivery apps. Data that differs from one channel to another is a problem in itself, sometimes bigger than a missing piece because it shows a contradiction. That's why you build it once at the item level and publish it to all of them with one click. Here's a quick map tying each piece of data to the body that owns its rule and where it has to appear: