Why are allergens such a hot topic?

The Management of Allergens in the food industry has become a high profile topic in recent years and many have asked the question ‘Why is this such a burning issue?’  The reason is that in recent years many people have become allergic to certain foods.  There are several theories as to why this has happened but a definitive cause has been difficult to find. Fortunately many of the symptoms of food allergy are reasonably mild but unfortunately they can be very serious in some individuals, and can lead to life threatening situations.

Several deaths have been reported around the world as a result of food allergy and very small amounts have been implicated. In addition to the low dose response, a rapid onset of the symptoms has been reported in some instances. It was reported that a person who was allergic to fish, died after eating chips fried in a fish shop which used the same oil to fry both the fish and the chips. Another instance involved a man who was on honeymoon who was allergic to seafood and consumed cocktails which he had been told did not contain seafood – he collapsed after 30 minutes and later died in hospital. It is because of the rare but serious consequences that it has become necessary to carefully manage allergens in the food industry

What foods are the problems?

There are probably well over 150 foods that can cause an allergic reaction in some individuals but fortunately there are relatively few that cause the majority of the problems. The common allergens or the top 8 allergens are wheat (gluten) and other similar gluten containing cereals, eggs, cow’s milk, soy, fish, crustaceans & molluscs, peanuts and tree nuts. These are the ones which are legislated in South Africa and which must be declared in the ingredients and/or in an allergen panel close to the ingredient list Full details are available in Government Regulation R146 published on 1 March 2010

See our legislation section for details

Managing allergen cross contamination

The major problem for the food industry does not lie as much with the use of deliberately added allergens which are declared in the ingredient list, but with allergens which are not declared but find their way into products through cross contamination. Fortunately it is possible to build an Allergen Control Programme into an existing food safety system and in the HACCP system allergens are identified and controlled along with food safety hazards.

An Allergen Control Policy is a legal requirement under Regulation R 146 for all food processors or manufacturers where there is a risk of cross contamination and due diligence or Good Manufacturing Practices must be in place to avoid cross contamination. The measures that can be taken to prevent cross contamination include the formulation of foods to avoid the use of unnecessary common allergens as ingredients, the design of facilities and equipment to enable easy cleaning to take place, a vendor control programme which assesses the risks of raw materials being contaminated prior to receipt, use of dedicated equipment for allergen and non allergen containing products or where this is not possible then the scheduling of non allergen containing products on a clean line prior to the production of allergen containing products on shared equipment. Practical steps need to be accompanied by allergen residue testing of food contact surfaces and of finished products and both in-house test kits together with external laboratory testing facilities are available in South Africa. Many other aspects of allergen control are given in the guidelines to the labelling regulations published on the Department of Food Control website

See our legislation section for details

Manage or recall?

Recalls as a result of the presence of undeclared allergens in food products have taken place for several years in first world countries and have in-fact outnumbered recalls for microbiological contamination of foods. These recalls have not been limited to the smaller manufacturers who may have fewer resources to control cross contamination. The biggest and the best have fallen victim to allergen cross contamination and the packing of the wrong product into wrong packaging resulting in incorrect ingredient and allergen information on the pack. Whilst these recalls have taken place regularly overseas the problem has now received prominence in South Africa with the recall of a muffin mix which may have contained undeclared nuts.

Find out more

Much has been written on the Management of Allergens in the food industry and additional information is available for those who may be interested are available on
IUFOST 

Author

Ron Timm