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Eggs
Eggs is entry 3 of the fourteen substances Annex II of Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011 makes declarable. IgE-mediated food allergy. Where it hides, which exemptions apply, and what it cross-reacts with.
This is reference information, not a diagnosis and not a treatment plan. A pollen calendar cannot tell you what you are allergic to, and no page can clear a food as safe for you — only the label on the packet in your hand and the clinician who knows your history can do that. Anything beyond mild, short-lived symptoms in the mouth or nose — swelling that affects breathing or swallowing, hives away from the mouth, wheeze, vomiting or faintness — is an emergency question, not a reading question.
What the law says
Annex II, entry 3: “Eggs and products thereof”
That wording carries the whole obligation. The substance must be declared whenever it is used in the making of a food and is still present in the finished product, even in an altered form, and it must be picked out inside the ingredient list by typeset — bold, capitals, italics, underlining or a contrasting colour. There is no legal requirement for a separate allergen box, so the ingredient list is where to look.
Source: Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011, Annex II and Article 21 · checked 2026-09-06
What the reaction actually is
Egg allergy is one of the two most common food allergies in early childhood. The main allergens are in the white: ovomucoid, ovalbumin, ovotransferrin and lysozyme. Ovomucoid is the one that matters most for what a family can actually eat, because it survives heat while the others do not.
Who gets it, and does it last
Most children outgrow egg allergy, often during the school years, and the usual first step back is baked egg — egg cooked thoroughly inside a cake or biscuit, where the heat-labile proteins are destroyed. Many children who react to scrambled egg tolerate a muffin. That progression is done under clinical supervision, never as a home experiment.
Where it hides
- Mayonnaise, aioli, remoulade and Caesar dressing
- Meringue, mousse, custard and ice cream
- Fresh pasta and many noodles
- Glazed bread and pastry (egg wash)
- Meatballs, fish cakes and pâté as a binder
- Some wines and juices clarified with egg albumin
- Marshmallow and nougat
Every Baltic and Nordic celebration table carries mayonnaise-bound salads, and egg wash is standard on the bread and pastry of the region. Restaurant sauces built on hollandaise or aioli are the routine hidden source.
Cross-reactions
Hen, duck, goose and quail eggs cross-react heavily, so a duck egg is not a substitute. Bird-egg syndrome runs the other way: sensitisation to bird serum albumin from keeping birds can produce reactions to egg yolk and poultry meat.
The labelling detail
Egg is entry 3 with no exemptions. It must be declared even where it appears as a processing aid that ends up in the food, such as albumin used to clarify a wine, and it must be emphasised in the ingredient list.
Exemptions: none. Entry 3 has no carve-outs at all, so there is no processed fraction of it that escapes the label.
Precautionary wording — “may contain”, “made in a factory that also handles” — is a separate matter: it is voluntary, unstandardised and carries no threshold. How strictly to treat it is a clinical decision, not a reading of the label. The labelling explainer sets out the whole frame, including what happens in restaurants and bakeries where there is no pack at all.
What gets misread
The influenza vaccines used in Europe are grown in eggs, and this used to mean automatic exclusion. Current guidance in most European countries is far less restrictive, and the decision belongs with the clinician giving the vaccine — not with a food label.
Sources: Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011, Annex II · Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) No 828/2014 (gluten claims) · WHO/IUIS Allergen Nomenclature · season windows from the national aerobiology monitoring programmes of Estonia, Finland, Sweden, Denmark and Norway · cross-reaction patterns paraphrased from the allergy literature and EAACI material · checked 2026-09-06
Frequently asked questions
Is eggs one of the fourteen EU allergens?
Yes, entry 3. The Regulation words it as: Eggs and products thereof. It must be declared and emphasised in the ingredient list of any food sold in the EU that contains it.
Where does eggs hide?
The routine unexpected sources are mayonnaise, aioli, remoulade and caesar dressing; meringue, mousse, custard and ice cream; fresh pasta and many noodles; glazed bread and pastry (egg wash); meatballs, fish cakes and pâté as a binder; some wines and juices clarified with egg albumin; marshmallow and nougat. This is what makes the ingredient list, rather than the name of the dish, the thing to read.
Are there any labelling exemptions for eggs?
No. Entry 3 carries no exemptions, so any eggs-derived ingredient is declarable however small the amount.
What does eggs cross-react with?
Hen, duck, goose and quail eggs cross-react heavily, so a duck egg is not a substitute. Bird-egg syndrome runs the other way: sensitisation to bird serum albumin from keeping birds can produce reactions to egg yolk and poultry meat.
Cereals containing gluten
Coeliac disease (autoimmune), wheat allergy (IgE) and non-coeliac wheat sensitivity — three different conditions under one entry.
Crustaceans
IgE-mediated food allergy, mainly to tropomyosin.
Fish
IgE-mediated food allergy, mainly to parvalbumin.
Peanuts
IgE-mediated food allergy — severe storage-protein type, or mild birch-pollen-related type.
Soybeans
IgE-mediated food allergy — primary, or birch-pollen-related through Gly m 4.
Foods by diet and allergen
The food database filtered by written rules. A way to explore, never an allergen clearance.
Keep the log, spot the pattern
When a reaction is hard to pin down, a food and symptom log across weeks is worth more than any single meal you can remember. TempoLife keeps both in one place.