A store item can have various characteristics. For instance, you may want to provide different versions of the same product to cater to different groups of people, such as vegetarians and non-vegetarians, or any other groups you can think about. Item characteristics associate a product with the allergens it may contain. Showing allergen information on product information helps you comply with the law while ensuring that people with various food intolerance are covered.
On This Page
- Associate a Store Item With Characteristics and Allergen Information
- Available Characteristics and Allergen Markers
- How Allergen Information Appear on the Customer Interface
Associate a Store Item With Characteristics and Allergen Information
An item saved in your store catalog can be associated with one or more characteristics. Generally, item characteristics identify items that may contain specific allergens or suit a particular lifestyle. Items can only be associated with allergens through an update process and not during creation. That is to say; you will have to save an item in your catalog before you can associate it with its characteristics and allergens.
To associate a store item with one or more allergens, visit your store dashboard and choose catalog from the side menu. Next, you need to identify and select the category it belongs to.
After choosing the category, select the item you want to edit and click on the Edit icon next to its name. Notice that this is the same process you would need to follow if you wanted to edit other product attributes.
The item details page shows you all editable product attributes. However, we are only interested in associating the item with one or more allergens. Therefore, scroll down the page and find the Characteristics option just below the price variants option and click on it to expand.
When you expand the characteristics section, you will see a list of characteristics and allergens you can associate with any store item. Beside each option is a check box to make your selection easy. Here, you can mark one or more characteristics that best describe your product. Once satisfied that you have picked the suitable options, click the save button, so the changes take effect in the store.
Available Characteristics and Allergen Markers
As we mentioned in the previous section, characteristics can either be descriptive of the allergens used to prepare a product or refer to the group of people who would be pleased to buy the item. GonnaOrder provides you with sixteen (16) different options for the characteristics. Read about them below.
- Vegetarian: This characteristic should only be associated with products that conform to vegetarian lifestyles. If a store item does not contain animal products, you may associate it with this characteristic. Vegetarian diets may sometimes have dairy products or eggs.
- Vegan: Vegan lifestyles are more strict. They do not include any animal products in the diet. Products with purely plant ingredients can be associated with this characteristic.
- Halal: This characteristic should be associated with items that follow Islamic law in preparation. It indicates that the products are for consumption by people of the Islamic faith. Other people may also consume products marked Halal.
- Gluten Free: This characteristic should be associated with items that are free from gluten, which is a protein found in wheat and other grains.
- Dairy Free: This characteristic should be associated with items that do not contain any milk or milk product from cows, sheep or goats.
- Sugar Free: This characteristic should be associated with items that do not contain sugar. These foods, however, might contain artificial sweetner.
- With Stevia: This characteristic should be associated with items that do not contain sugar, but have Stevia which acts as a food sweetner.
- Spicy: Items prepared using chili pepper and other spices can be marked as spicy (single chili pepper icon), moderately spiced (two chili pepper icons), or very spicy (three chili pepper icons) depending on the amount of spices used in their preparation.
- Frozen Ingredients: This characteristic should be associated with food that is completely or partially associated with items that are pre-cooked and frozen to be used when required.
- Celery: A type of green vegetable that is often used as a spice.
- Wheat: Products containing or made from wheat flour or substances containing wheat derivatives should be associated with the wheat characteristic.
- Crustaceans: This characteristic applies to all foods prepared using seal life, excluding fish and sea plants. Such sea life includes but is not limited to crabs, lobsters, prawns, shrimps, and krill.
- Eggs: Eggs and products made from eggs.
- Fish: This characteristic should be associated with items that contain fish or fish products.
- Lupin: Lupin is a legume, just like peanuts. You should associate any items containing whole lupin, lupin flour, or lupin proteins with this characteristic.
- Dairy: Items containing milk or other dairy products can have this allergen symbol.
- Molluscs: Products prepared using molluscs either from dry land or the sea can have this label. Molluscs include ark shells, cockles, gaper clams, and geoducks, to mention but a few.
- Mustard: A condiment for hot and cold meals. They are used as an emulsifier too.
- Nuts: Represents the various nuts and nut products used to prepare meals, snacks, and drinks.
- Peanuts: Peanuts and products made from peanuts. Lupin and nuts are treated as different allergens; therefore, we have them as individual characteristics.
- Sesame: Products containing sesame seeds and oils may have this characteristic.
- Soya: Represents soya and soy products used to prepare particular store items.
- Sulphur Dioxide: This is useful when labeling foods and drinks that may contain Carbon Dioxide. Most soft drinks have an element of gas, and you may need to use this characteristic with them.
- Barley: You can associate this characteristic with products made from or containing barley derivatives. Barley and wheat are different and should be treated as such.
- Cinnamon: This characteristic should be added to items that contain cinnamon, which is a spice made from the dried, aromatic bark of several tropical trees.
- Citric Acid: This characteristic should be added to items that contain citric acid, which is generally found in citric fruits such as oranges or lemons.
How Allergen Information Appear on the Customer Interface
GonnaOrder will display your chosen item characteristics and allergens alongside the product name and price to make it easier for customers to know what they are buying from your store. This will be the case for both the expanded catalog page and the item details page. On the catalog page, only the symbols representing the characteristics appear just below the item’s name. The item details page displays the allergens’ symbols and names.
For the item we associated with allergens in the previous sections, here are the images of how it looks on the customer interface.
