If you have a food allergy or intolerance, please read this page before you order. It is the single most important page on this site.
The short version
We weigh sweets out by hand, in one small space, using shared scoops and shared equipment. We cannot guarantee that any sweet we send is free from any allergen.
Our pick and mix contains, and is handled alongside, products containing: milk, soya, wheat (gluten), barley (gluten), nuts, peanuts, sesame, eggs and sulphur dioxide. Cross-contact between sweets is likely, not merely possible.
If a reaction to any of these would be serious for you, please do not order our loose pick and mix. Buy from our Bags & Boxes range instead, where every item arrives in the manufacturer's own sealed pack with its own full ingredient list, untouched by us.
Why we cannot be more reassuring than that
A pick and mix counter works by having a hundred open containers and a scoop. Sweets get handled, dust travels, and a nut-containing line sits a few inches from one that does not. There is no honest way to describe that as an allergen-controlled environment, and we would rather tell you plainly than hide behind a disclaimer.
What we do do: we wash and dry scoops between different sweets, we keep nut-containing lines physically separated and handle them last, we pack in a clean space, and we never reuse packaging.
What the labels on this site mean
Where a product page says a sweet is vegan, suitable for vegetarians, halal, gluten free or sugar free, we are repeating the declaration made by the manufacturer or our wholesaler for that specific line. We do not make these assessments ourselves, and we do not infer them from an ingredients list.
Two things follow from that:
- "Gluten free" is about the recipe, not our kitchen. A line listed as gluten free was made without gluten-containing ingredients. It is still scooped in a space where gluten is present. If you are coeliac rather than reducing gluten by choice, buy sealed packs.
- Recipes change without notice. Manufacturers reformulate. The pack is always the authority, not this website.
What you will get with your order
Every pick and mix order is sent with a list of exactly which sweets are in your pouch, so you can look each one up. Sealed packs carry the manufacturer's own full label, including the allergen statement in bold, as required by law.
If you need the ingredient and allergen information for a specific line before you order, email david@scoopandbloom.co.uk and tell us which sweet. We will send you exactly what the manufacturer gives us, usually the same working day. Please ask rather than guess.
The 14 allergens
UK law requires 14 allergens to be declared. For reference, these are: celery; cereals containing gluten (wheat, rye, barley, oats); crustaceans; eggs; fish; lupin; milk; molluscs; mustard; peanuts; sesame; soybeans; sulphur dioxide and sulphites; and tree nuts.
Of these, the ones that routinely appear in confectionery are milk, soya, gluten, nuts, peanuts, sesame, eggs and sulphites. Gelatine, where present, is usually pork or beef — see our vegetarian, vegan and halal collections if that matters to you.
Children and parties
If you are ordering for a children's party or a school event, please do not rely on our pick and mix being safe for a child with a diagnosed allergy. Order sealed packs for that child specifically, keep them separate, and let whoever is supervising know.
Ask us
We would much rather spend ten minutes answering a question than have somebody have a reaction. Email david@scoopandbloom.co.uk with the sweet and the allergen you are asking about.