Scan the barcode with Bite Insight, a free app for UK supermarket food, and it checks the ingredients and allergen info for the nut allergies in your profile. You’ll see a red Warning if your nut is listed and an amber card for "may contain" traces. It works from product data, which can be out of date, so read the pack before you eat anything.
Nuts and nut derivatives hide in products you would never expect. And with cross-contamination risks spread across thousands of products, the stakes of missing something are high.
Allergy UK puts it at around 2% of children and 0.5% of adults. It usually starts before the age of 5, and it’s uncommon to grow out of it.
Peanuts and tree nuts are two of them. On prepacked food they must be emphasised in the ingredients list, often in bold. “May contain” warnings aren’t a legal requirement, so the wording varies.
That’s Allergy UK’s estimate. Peanuts are a legume, a different plant family from tree nuts, but the two allergies often turn up together. It’s why the app shows a Caution card when a product has the other kind.
UK law says peanuts and tree nuts must be emphasised in the ingredients list of prepacked food, often in bold. "May contain" lines work differently. There’s no legal requirement to use them, and the wording varies from brand to brand. The app can do a first check, but the pack in your hand has the final say.
Pick Peanut Allergy, Tree Nut Allergy or both under Allergies when you sign up, or later in settings. Those are the only two nut options, so you can’t choose a single nut like cashew there. With Bite Insight+ you can add individual nuts to your own list of ingredients to flag.
If the ingredients or allergen info list your nut, a red Warning card sits at the top of the results and the matching ingredients are marked as harmful. Traces get an amber May contain card. If you have one nut allergy and the product has the other kind of nut, you get a teal Caution card. With no ingredient list or allergen info, it tells you it couldn’t check.
No card doesn’t mean nut-free. Read the pack.
The FSA says the 14 allergens must be emphasised in the ingredients list of prepacked food. It’s often bold, but italics or colour are allowed too. Peanuts and tree nuts are separate allergens, so look for the one you react to.
Allergy UK lists groundnuts, monkey nuts and Arachis hypogaea as other names for peanut. It also says it’s hard to be sure refined peanut oil has been refined enough, and advises avoiding it too.
The FSA says there’s no legal requirement to put "may contain" on food. A pack without that line isn’t proof it’s nut-free. Ask your allergy team whether you need to avoid products that do carry it.
Food sold loose or served in a café won’t have a barcode for the app to scan. The FSA says the business must give you allergen information. For loose food it can be written down or told to you. Food packed on site, like a sandwich made in store, must have a full ingredients list.
The FSA’s tree nut list names almonds, hazelnuts, walnuts, Brazil nuts, cashews, pecans, pistachios and macadamia nuts. Allergy UK says coconut doesn’t need to be avoided, and most people with a nut allergy don’t need to avoid pine nuts either. Bite Insight is stricter. It counts coconut, chestnut and pine nut as tree nuts, so you may get warnings for them, and a peanut allergy profile will get a Caution card for coconut. Ask your allergy team what you actually need to avoid.
There’s no score here. The app looks at the allergen tags and ingredient list held for the product, plus any "may contain" line, and matches them against the nut allergies in your profile. It knows common other names, like groundnut and arachis oil for peanut, or marzipan and praline for tree nuts. Words like nutmeg and water chestnut are ignored. It only uses the product name when there’s no ingredient list. Its tree nut list is wider than the FSA’s, because coconut, chestnut and pine nut count too. It never tells you a product is nut-free.
The Warning, Caution, May contain and Not checked cards are all free, and flagging individual nuts of your own is part of Bite Insight+ at £3.99 a month. Compare Free and Bite Insight+
Bite Insight gives general food information, not medical advice. It works from product data, which can be wrong or out of date, so read the pack every time. If you’ve been prescribed adrenaline, the NHS says to carry 2 auto-injectors with you at all times. Ask your GP or allergy clinic which nuts you need to avoid, and whether "may contain" products are OK for you.
Bite Insight does not give everyone the same results. Add your nut allergy to your profile once and every scan checks for it.
If a product lists a nut you’re allergic to, a red Warning card sits at the top of the results. The app checks the ingredients and allergen info, including other names like groundnut or marzipan. Scan warnings cover the allergies in your profile, not all 14.
Choose Peanut Allergy, Tree Nut Allergy or both. Traces get an amber May contain card. If you have one of the two and the product has the other kind of nut, you get a Caution card. When there’s no ingredient list or allergen info, the app says it couldn’t check.
The profile only offers Peanut Allergy and Tree Nut Allergy. If you react to one nut, say cashews, add it to your own list of ingredients to flag. You’ll see an orange Flagged card whenever it turns up.
There’s no allergen score. Instead the app shows a card for each thing it finds that matters to your nut allergy, at the top of the results.
A quick first check in the aisle. The pack still has the final say.
Point your camera at the barcode on a packet, in the shop or at home.
Bite Insight checks the ingredients and allergen info against your nut allergy and puts any warnings at the top.
Read the pack for anything the app flagged, and for anything it couldn’t check.
Real experience
“My son has a severe peanut allergy. The stress of food shopping never goes away completely, but Bite Insight has genuinely made it so much easier. That peace of mind is worth a lot.”
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About using Bite Insight with a nut allergy.
Bite Insight is a free UK app built for this: scan a barcode and it checks the ingredients and allergen info for the allergies in your profile. Add Peanut Allergy, Tree Nut Allergy or any other allergies when you sign up. A red Warning shows if the product lists your allergen, and an amber card covers "may contain" traces. There’s no scan limit. Check the pack by hand too. Look for the emphasised allergens in the ingredients list and any "may contain" line, because product data can be out of date.
It depends on your allergy, so ask your allergy team. The labelling side is simpler. The FSA says there’s no legal requirement to put "may contain" on food, so wording varies and a pack without the warning isn’t proof it’s nut-free. Peanuts and tree nuts used as ingredients must be emphasised in the ingredients list of prepacked food. Bite Insight shows "may contain" traces as their own amber card.
Not automatically. Peanuts are a legume, a different plant family from tree nuts. But Allergy UK says around 30 to 40% of children with a peanut allergy also have an allergy to at least one tree nut. Your allergy specialist can tell you which nuts are fine for you. If your Bite Insight profile has only one of the two nut allergies, the app shows a Caution card when a product has the other kind.
Yes. Choose Peanut Allergy, Tree Nut Allergy or both under Allergies during onboarding, or change them any time in settings. Each scan then checks the ingredients and allergen info for those nuts. You get a red Warning card if one is listed, an amber card for “may contain” traces, and a Not checked card if there’s no ingredient list or allergen info.
Yes, for the common ones. The app matches other names such as groundnut and arachis oil for peanut, and marzipan, praline and gianduja for tree nuts, along with nut oils, butters and pastes. It works from the ingredient text, so a nut hidden behind a vague word like “flavouring” may not be caught. Read the pack too.
Yes. If the product data lists traces, or the ingredients include a “may contain” sentence, you’ll see an amber May contain card. The app only sees what’s in the product data. If a pack mentions a shared factory and that isn’t in the data, the app won’t know, so check the pack.
Partly. The profile has two nut options, Peanut Allergy and Tree Nut Allergy, so you can’t pick a single tree nut there. With Bite Insight+ you can add individual nuts, like cashew, to your own list of ingredients to flag. You’ll then see an orange Flagged card when one turns up.
Bite Insight is a food information tool, not a medical device. It checks product ingredient data and surfaces allergen information to help you make informed decisions. It should be used alongside careful label reading, not as a replacement for it. If you have a severe allergy or a history of anaphylaxis, always read labels carefully and follow the guidance of your allergist or immunologist.
