# How Can a Multi-Brand Hospitality Group Manage Allergen Information Centrally Across All Its Venues?

Canonical: https://paddl-ai.co/answers/how-does-a-multi-brand-group-manage-allergens-centrally
Last reviewed: 2026-11-07 by the Paddl team

How a multi-brand UK hospitality group runs allergens centrally: one source of products and recipes, linked copies per venue, held removals and brand pages.

## Quick answer

Decide where the truth lives first: one set of products and recipes owned by head office, with each venue holding a linked copy rather than its own version. Then set three rules: allergens a supplier adds reach every venue at once, removals are confirmed at each venue, and each venue acknowledges every change. Paddl does this for brands run as one business (products roll up into every site's dishes) and for brands or franchisees run as separate businesses (the organisation's group food library).

## Key facts

- One source of products and recipes, owned by head office; each venue holds a linked copy.
- Brands in one company: one Paddl business, shared products, separate allergen menus per site.
- Brands as separate companies or franchises: an organisation with a group food library, free for owners of two or more businesses.
- Gains apply at once, removals are confirmed per venue, every venue acknowledges.
- Group menus live in the library too, scoped to a brand if you like; each venue keeps its own sites, served times, page and QR code.

Multi-brand groups usually end up with allergen data in three places: a head office spreadsheet, each brand's menu files, and whatever each kitchen keeps. Central management means collapsing that into one source without taking responsibility away from the venue, because each food business stays answerable for what it tells a guest.

Start with the structure. If your brands are all inside one company, run them as one Paddl business: each site has its own allergen menus, and the dishes share the same products and prep, so an ingredient change reaches every brand's dishes at once. If your brands are separate companies, or you franchise, put them in an organisation: head office keeps master dishes, prep items, products and menus in a library, scopes each master to the brands or areas that serve it, and each business holds linked copies. A brand's menu then reaches only that brand's businesses, including one that joins later, and each business chooses the sites that serve it and publishes its own page and QR code.

Then the rules. Gains go live everywhere straight away. Removals wait for a person at each venue. A dish a venue takes for the first time arrives unconfirmed and stays off its public page until someone there checks it. Ingredients, allergens, label, shelf life and method are locked at the venue, with allergens add-only, and a venue whose supplier differs declares a local variant with a reason. Each venue acknowledges each update, and head office sees which have.

## Seeing the whole group's food

The group food view on the organisation home shows where any product or dish is used across brands and businesses. For each business it lists dishes waiting to be confirmed, held removals and unacknowledged updates with their age, local variants, allergens it keeps stricter locally, look-alike products not yet linked, till products with no allergen record and the menu version on its public page, with a Remind button. It also shows each business's allergen training coverage and whether its written allergen information covers all 14 allergens for every dish on each menu.

## Brands, areas and who sees what

In an organisation, brands group businesses by what they sell and areas group sites by where they are. A master can be given to everyone, chosen brands or chosen areas, so a business that joins later gets it too. Head office sees readiness, counts and update status for each business, never its staff, records or documents. Organisation admins and library editors look after the masters; brand and area managers see their part of the estate.

## What stays with each venue

Its own menus, and on a group menu its sites, served times, page, QR code and page settings (which it can only make stricter). Whether a dish is hidden from the public page, its till links, its own added allergens and its confirmations. While head office leaves a group menu's dish list open, a venue can add local specials, and it can mark a dish it does not serve as Not served here. Billing stays per business, at the same price per site, with no organisation invoice.

## Central kitchens and supplier data

A central kitchen is covered by the Central kitchen module: transfers with batches and use-by dates, items at the receiving business linked to the source so allergens follow it, and the label route worked out per line. Supplier data can come from Erudus: a daily sync, each spec change a review card a person approves, then the change flows to every linked venue like any group update. Other product allergens come from the supplier specs you upload.

## Two ways to run a multi-brand group in Paddl

|  | One business, several brands | Organisation of separate businesses |
| --- | --- | --- |
| When it fits | Brands owned by one company, one set of accounts | Separate companies, franchisees or joint ventures |
| Shared products and recipes | Yes, across every site | Yes, as linked copies from the group library |
| Shared menus | Each site's allergen menus draw on the same dishes | Group menus from the library, scoped by brand or area |
| Ingredient gains an allergen | Every dish at every site at once | Every linked venue at once |
| Allergen removed | Waits for a manager to confirm | Waits for someone at each venue to confirm |
| Proof each venue saw it | Change log and team message | Acknowledgement per venue, visible to head office |
| Billing | One subscription, per site | Each business its own subscription, per site |

## Questions

**Can one dish be served by two brands with different names?**

A group dish keeps the name head office sets, because the name is also its label name and is locked unless head office unlocks it. Where two brands genuinely serve different dishes, keep them as two masters scoped to each brand.

**Can a franchisee refuse an allergen change?**

Not a gain: an allergen head office adds is live at once. A franchisee can add an allergen for its own kitchen and must confirm any removal before it shows. It can unlink a dish with Make it our own, after which it gets no more updates and head office is told.