Time to review your allergen controls

Despite the requirements for allergen labelling coming into force three years ago, we still see regular food alerts and recalls due to lack of declaration on product labels of allergenic ingredients. In some instances the issue is a total lack of declaration, in others a mistake in information transfer to a 'contains' box.

It is also still fairly common to see gluten declared as the allergen, not the originating cereal crop, which is what the legislation actually demands (though there is nothing to stop you giving both, eg contains wheat gluten).

The legislation is extremely far reaching in terms of labelling requirements and is based on the assumption that, unless otherwise demonstrated, the allergenic potential of the specified allergens remains.

So, what's new? Molluscs and lupin are declarable allergens from next year and labelling exemptions are also set to change.

November 25 marks the end of the current temporary exclusions from allergen labelling of the derived ingredients specified back in 2005. The list allowed that these specific ingredients be exempt from the requirement to be indicated with reference to the 'parent' allergen name.

At time of writing the European Food Safety Authority has issued opinions on most of the requests for permanent exemption from the need to label certain ingredients as derived from allergenic ingredients. Uncertainty hangs over how some opinions will be applied eg glucose syrups based on barley cleared for non-specific cereal allergens and gluten not passed for barley-specific allergic individuals.

By the time you read this column I would hope that the legislation has been published to set out clearly what has been decided by the European Commission as the final listing - get checking!

Kath Veal​ is business manager, Regulatory and Technical Consultancy Services at Leatherhead Food International​