Consumer advisory
Two sentences on your menu, and one rule that cancels them both
If anything you serve is raw or undercooked, the Food Code asks for two specific things in print — and most menus carry one of them. This is the odd item in this library: the output is menu copy, not a form to file.
Free to build. You see the whole thing before anything is asked of you.
01The rule
Disclosure, and reminder.
Serve animal food raw or undercooked and the menu needs both a disclosure and a reminder.
FDA Food Code §3-603.11
Disclosure — which items. Either named in the description, or marked with a symbol that leads to a footnote.
Reminder — that eating those foods raw or undercooked increases the risk of foodborne illness.
Most menus that get this wrong have the asterisk and no footnote. A symbol that leads nowhere is half a disclosure and no reminder at all.
02The override
For some rooms, no wording is enough.
This is the part worth knowing before you write anything.
If your operation serves a highly susceptible population — a care home, a preschool, a facility serving immunocompromised people — then raw and undercooked animal food is not permitted at all [§3-801.11].
There is no advisory that makes it acceptable. The rule is not “warn them harder”; it is that those dishes do not go on that menu.
03Getting it onto the menu
It is copy, so treat it like copy.
- 1
List what you actually serve undercooked
Rare burgers, eggs to order, raw oysters, tartare, sushi, carpaccio. Be honest — “cooked to your liking” counts.
- 2
Decide how you disclose — naming or a symbol
Naming reads better on a short menu. A symbol and footnote works better on a long one.
- 3
Put the reminder where the symbol leads
Same page, legible size. A footnote in four-point grey is a footnote nobody can read.
- 4
Check the children's menu separately
Undercooked ground meat should not be offered there even on request.
- 5
Put it on the redesign checklist
This is the real failure mode. Menus get reprinted seasonally and the footnote is the first thing a designer drops for space.
04Being straight with you
Why there is nothing to download here.
Why there’s no blank one to download
Every other item in this library is a sheet you print. This one is not a form at all — it is wording that belongs on your menu, set by whoever designs it.
And it has to name your dishes. A generic paragraph copied from somewhere else discloses nothing, because disclosure means saying which of your items are served undercooked.
Building a plan asks what you serve undercooked and who you serve — including whether you serve a highly susceptible population, which changes the answer entirely — and produces wording that matches your menu.
05Getting it wrong
What an inspector notices.
An asterisk with no footnote
The single most common version of this failure. The symbol has to lead somewhere on the same menu.
A reminder with nothing disclosed
A general warning at the bottom does not say which dishes it is about, which is the other half of the requirement.
Undercooked items on a menu for a susceptible population
No advisory makes this acceptable. The dishes should not be offered at all.
A new menu that lost the footnote
Seasonal redesigns are where this quietly disappears. It belongs on the reprint checklist.
06Questions
The things people ask.
Do I need a consumer advisory?
If you serve any animal-derived food raw or undercooked — a rare burger, a runny egg, raw oysters, steak tartare, sushi — then yes [Food Code §3-603.11]. If everything you serve is cooked through, you do not.
What are the two parts?
A disclosure and a reminder. The disclosure says which items are raw or undercooked, either by naming them or by marking them with a symbol and a footnote. The reminder says that eating those foods raw or undercooked increases the risk of foodborne illness. Both are required — one without the other does not satisfy the rule.
Is an asterisk enough on its own?
No. An asterisk with no footnote anywhere on the menu is a disclosure with nothing to disclose. The symbol has to lead somewhere.
Does the advisory let me serve anything undercooked?
No, and this is the part that catches people. If your operation serves a highly susceptible population — a care facility, a preschool, somewhere serving immunocompromised people — raw and undercooked animal food is not permitted at all [§3-801.11]. No wording makes it acceptable.
What about children's menus?
There is a further restriction: undercooked comminuted meat — burgers, ground meat — should not be offered from a children's menu even on request. Whole-muscle cuts are treated differently from ground.
Where does it have to appear?
On the menu itself, where the customer makes the decision. Not on a sign by the till and not on the back of the receipt. Practically, the biggest failure mode is a menu redesign that quietly drops the footnote.
Answer what you serve undercooked and who you serve, and the wording comes out naming your dishes.
The cook temperatures behind those dishes are on the cooking log, and the menu-wide view of what is in each dish is the allergen matrix.