A Comprehensive Approach to Reducing the Risk of Allergens in Foods

Abstract

The control of food allergens in a food-processing plant presents numerous challenges. An allergen prevention plan must determine potential sources of contaminating allergens and appropriate controls to prevent their introduction into food products. These controls may include scheduling production of allergen-containing products at the end of manufacturing runs, appropriate labeling and use of rework, equipment and system-design considerations, and thorough cleaning of lines after running allergen-containing food products. Proper labeling of food products, effective management of label inventories, control of ingredients from suppliers, and training of employees are key factors in allergen control.

Food allergens: Knowledge and practices of food handlers in restaurants

“…In the food industry, bad formulation, inappropriate hygiene and cross-contamination with dust or parts of allergens (fragments of peanuts, for example) left in the processing system are potential means for an allergen to contaminate an unrelated product. In this case, in order to guarantee the safety of processes, it is necessary to identify the potential points of contamination and establish a prevention system (Deibel et al, 1997). Thus, the use of equipment to produce food requires well-defined and consistent cleaning techniques, especially if the same equipment is used to prepare several types of product.…”

Cross-Contamination of Foods and Implications for Food Allergic Patients

“…The proper management of the use of such shared equipment and facilities is essential to prevent cross-contamination that could allow potentially hazardous residues of an allergenic food into another product in which they should not be present [41,42]. During the past 20 years, the North American food industry has increasingly adopted allergen control strategies, including use of dedicated facilities, processing lines, or specific pieces of equipment; the effective separation of allergenic formulations from others during manufacturing; implementation of scheduling strategies that lessen the risk of crosscontamination; and the development and use of effective sanitation strategies when other approaches are not possible [41,42]. Sanitation can be especially difficult in certain processing environments, such as bakeries and chocolate manufacturers, in which water cannot be used to aid in the cleaning.…”

Processing Foods without Soybean Ingredients

“…Detailed information on GMPs for " allergen -free " food production is provided elsewhere in this book. Deibel et al [183] reported that inadvertent allergens in foods can result from a number of events. These include misformulation; improper cleanup; crosscontamination by dust or pieces of allergenic food remaining in the processing system; mechanical movement of the allergenic product or raw material that could fall from crossover points from unclosed system or from equipment common to more than one product that was not properly cleaned; product rework or work -in process materials that are added back into the wrong product stream; maintenance tools used on a line producing allergencontaining product and then on a different line; recycling systems; and waste handling.…”

“…Proper identifi cation of the label was helped by prior instruction by a health professional. There are also some concerns with labeling practices, which arise when manufacturers switch ingredients or modify food composition without making this clear on the label [183,186] . Additionally, imported food products need to be treated with appropriate precaution as manufacturing and labeling standards may differ from country to country [163] .…”