New allergen management best practice guidelines

The UK Food and Drink Federation (FDF) Allergens Steering Group have recently published a viewpoint article in the journal Trends in Food Science and Technology on best practice allergen management for the food industry. Their aim is to help reduce the over-use of precautionary allergen labelling and clearly communicate the allergen status of products. The group propose a risk management approach, and cite aspects of the AFGC VITAL system that could be used as a model in other parts of the world.

Since the introduction of mandatory allergen labelling, the food industry has worked hard to improve allergen management practices and this has increased the safety of food products for allergic consumers. However, consistent and standardised guidance in relation to the use of precautionary labelling remains lacking, and different manufacturers use various approaches to both the risk assessment process and end product labelling. As a result, precautionary labelling is seen to be overused to the point that food allergic consumers do not trust these labels and many are known to take the risk of consuming products despite the information provided by way of such labelling.

To address these issues, the FDF Allergens Steering Group advocate a risk-based approach to allergen management, with the paper setting out action levels based on current scientific and clinical data. Three classifications for foodstuffs are proposed based on certain Action Levels: ‘Free From’, ‘Suitable for’ and ‘May Contain’ or ‘Not suitable for’.

They believe that by providing industry with consistent and agreed principles, food manufacturers will have the information necessary to be able to reduce the risks from allergenic foods as far as possible.

Reference: Ward et al. 2010. Trends in Food Science and Technology. Doi: 10.1016/j.tifs.2010.09.004

• Editor’s Note: Further progress on developing risk assessment tools is welcomed by the Allergen Bureau, and it is pleasing to note the positive contribution VITAL has had in this area at an international level. The Allergen Bureau is currently working with allergen management experts around the world who are interested in the AFGC VITAL system, with the aim of ensuring a globally standardised approach to risk assessment.