A modern UK city flat dining table mid-meal: a sourdough loaf with a torn-off chunk on a wooden board, a bowl of leafy green salad, a cheese board with blue, hard, and brie cheeses with grapes and chutney, oatcakes and butter, clementines, three glasses of red and white wine, an open wine bottle, and a single dahlia in a small ceramic vase. Warm sunlight across the wooden table.

Guide

Allergies and Dietaries, Sorted Once

Dietary requirements are one of those things that seem simple until you’re standing in Tesco the day before a group trip, trying to remember whether it was Sam or Alex who’s coeliac, and whether anyone mentioned a nut allergy or just said they didn’t like nuts.
The problem is that nobody asks in a structured way, or they ask too late, or the information never makes it to the person cooking or the restaurant taking the booking. All three are easy to avoid. Here’s how.
Dietary collection sits at around week 6 in our group trip planning guide. If anyone in the group has a serious allergy, it’s also worth making sure the trip has appropriate travel insurance in place, which we cover in our guide to group travel insurance.

Ask once, ask properly

Send a single message to the group with five questions. Do it within a couple of weeks of booking the accommodation, not the week before the trip.
  1. Any allergies? And if so, how severe? There’s a meaningful difference between “I’m at risk of anaphylaxis if I eat peanuts” and “nuts don’t agree with me.” Both matter, but one requires a fundamentally different level of preparation.
  2. Any medical intolerances? Coeliac disease, lactose intolerance, anything diagnosed. These aren’t preferences and shouldn’t be treated as optional.
  3. Any diets? Vegan, vegetarian, pescatarian, or anything else the group should know about when planning meals.
  4. Any religious requirements? Halal, kosher, fasting periods. Ask directly rather than hoping people will volunteer. Some people won’t raise it unless asked.
  5. Anything you really can’t stand? Not allergies, just strong dislikes. The person who genuinely cannot eat fish shouldn’t have to sit through a fish supper. This question also gives people an easy, low-stakes way to flag something without feeling like they’re being difficult.
A Google Form works. A shared note works. A quick round-robin in the group chat works if the group is small enough. The format matters less than asking all the questions in one go and recording the answers somewhere the organiser can find later.
If you’re using the Flock app, you can collect and store dietary information for each person in the group. It stays on their profile for future trips too, so you don’t have to ask again next time.

Not all requirements are equal

This sounds obvious but it trips people up in practice. A peanut allergy that requires an epi-pen is not the same as someone who avoids gluten because they feel better without it. A religious dietary requirement is not the same as a preference for organic produce.
The practical difference matters when you’re planning meals, briefing a host, or choosing a restaurant. Life-threatening allergies need to be communicated to anyone handling food, checked against restaurant kitchen procedures, and potentially accommodated with separate preparation surfaces at a self-catering property (or avoided altogether). Medical intolerances need genuine alternatives, not just “pick the stuff off.” Dietary choices and preferences need respect and reasonable accommodation, but they don’t require the same level of operational rigour.
Treating everything as equally critical is exhausting for the organiser and can feel patronising to people whose requirements are straightforward. Treating everything as equally optional is dangerous. The five-question framework helps because it naturally separates severity by category.

Telling the host

Gathering the information is half the job. Getting it to the right person at the right time is the other half.
At booking: add any serious allergies to the special-requests or notes field. Most booking platforms have one but if you’re booking directly with an owner, include it in your first email. This gives them time to flag if the property isn’t suitable (some older kitchens genuinely can’t accommodate severe cross-contamination risks).
Two weeks before the trip: it’s a good idea to send a follow-up with the full dietary summary for the group. By this point you’ll have everyone’s responses. A clear list (“2 vegetarians, 1 coeliac, 1 nut allergy, anaphylactic”) is more useful than forwarding twelve individual messages.
The day before, for life-threatening allergies only: a text or call to confirm they’ve seen the allergy information and know what it means for food preparation. This feels like overkill until you’ve been the organiser who arrived to find the host had missed the email.
For restaurant bookings, the same principle applies. If there’s anything life-threatening or particularly restrictive within the group, call ahead rather than hoping the waiter will sort it out on the night. Large-group bookings with dietary requirements are much easier for restaurants to handle with advance notice and they’ll often provide their menu and ask the group to choose what they’ll eat in advance to help prepare the kitchen.

When requirements make shared meals difficult

Sometimes the dietary picture across a group makes it impossible to cook one meal everyone can eat. One person is vegan, another is coeliac, a third has a severe nut allergy, and the overlap between what all three can safely eat is essentially rice and vegetables.
The honest answer is that some meals on the trip might need to be split rather than shared, which is fine. It means the group is big enough or varied enough that flexibility beats forcing things. Cook a base that works for the most restricted person, with add-ons for everyone else, or accept that Tuesday’s dinner is two separate meals eaten at the same table.
What doesn’t work is pretending the conflict doesn’t exist and leaving the person with the most restrictions to fend for themselves. If someone is coeliac and the group decides on a pasta-making class, that’s a conversation to have before booking, not an awkward discovery on the day.

The shopping trip for self-catering

For cottages, houses or villas where you’re cooking for the group, someone needs to own the food shop. Usually the organiser, sometimes split between two or three people. Or split the group into pairs, each taking one night’s cooking and washing up.
Have the dietary summary visible when you’re planning meals and writing the shopping list. Buy allergen-safe alternatives alongside the regular ingredients rather than as an afterthought. If someone has coeliac disease, that means separate bread, separate pasta, and awareness that the same toaster and chopping board can cause cross-contamination. If someone is vegan, that means checking labels on things you wouldn’t expect to contain dairy (some breads, some stocks, plenty of sauces).
For specialist items that only one person will eat, it’s reasonable for that person to offer to buy them separately or let the organiser know exactly what they need. This should come from them, not be imposed by the organiser. The rest of the food shop is split equally across the group regardless of who eats what.

The cost question

Generally speaking, the default should be that everyone pays the same for food, regardless of dietary requirements. The person who’s vegan or coeliac didn’t choose to make the shop more complicated, and singling them out for a higher share is socially awkward and usually unnecessary. Vegan and free-from alternatives are rarely expensive enough to materially change the per-person cost.

More for the organiser

Keep going.

Frequently asked questions

How do you ask a group about dietary requirements?

Send one message with five questions: allergies (with severity), medical intolerances, diets (vegan, vegetarian, etc.), religious requirements, and strong dislikes. Send it within two weeks of booking, not the week before the trip. Record the answers somewhere you can refer back to.

What’s the best way to handle allergies on a group holiday?

Treat life-threatening allergies as non-negotiable constraints from the moment you book. They affect menu planning, restaurant choice, cooking arrangements, and potentially the property itself. Communicate them to anyone handling food at three points: at booking, two weeks before, and the day before for severe allergies.

How do you tell the holiday cottage owner about allergies?

At three points: add serious allergies to the special-requests field at booking, send a full dietary summary two weeks before the trip, and confirm life-threatening allergies with a call or text the day before. A clear summary list is more useful than forwarding individual messages.

What if one person in the group has a severe allergy?

Build the trip around it. The work is mostly upfront: choose the right accommodation, brief the host, and check restaurant procedures in advance. Once that’s done, day-to-day management is straightforward. Choose restaurants that can confirm their kitchen procedures, not just offer a separate menu. At self-catering properties, check whether dedicated allergen-free preparation is feasible. If someone carries an epi-pen, make sure at least one other person in the group knows where it is and how to use it.

How do you handle a group where dietary requirements conflict?

List them out. If they’re additive (one vegan, one coeliac, one nut-free, no overlap), you can usually plan a shared menu. If they compete (one vegan, one person who won’t eat plant-based meals), accept that some meals will be split. Cook a base that works for the most restricted person, with add-ons for everyone else.

Who pays for special dietary food on a group trip?

The default is an equal split on all shared food. The person with the dietary requirement doesn’t pay more for being vegan or coeliac. The one exception is specialist products bought exclusively for one person, which can be paid individually if both sides are comfortable with that. This should be offered, not imposed.

Should you ask about dietary requirements before booking or after?

After. Booking decisions should be based on dates, destination, and budget. Pulling dietary requirements into the booking decision risks the trip being derailed before it starts. Ask once the accommodation is booked and the group is committed.