Allergen Environmental Monitoring for the Food & Supplement Industry
Comprehensive Guide to Understanding and Implementing a Successful Food Allergen Environmental Monitoring Plan
Each year millions of consumers can have an adverse allergic reaction to foods. Food allergies can be mild or severe; in some instances, exposure can cause extremely serious reactions and even death. Because there is no permanent cure for food allergies, avoidance and early treatment of symptoms are the only management strategies available to affected individuals. There are over 160 different types of food known to trigger an allergic reaction in people with food allergies. Components in food that cause food allergy reactions are select, species-specific proteins. Improper label declaration of the presence of allergenic foods and ingredients is the leading cause of product recalls and contributes to unnecessary consumer exposure to allergens.
In the United States, the law identifies nine major allergenic foods and ingredients made from such foods that must be properly declared on food labels. These foods and ingredients derived from these foods account for 90 percent of food allergic reactions:
- Food Allergens Overview
- Goals for Environmental Control of Food Allergens
- Achieving Food Allergen Control
- Where to Test
- Tips on Food Allergen Test Methods
- Choosing Your Swab Type
- How to Sample
- Tracking Records
- Managing a Food Allergen Contamination Event
- Corrective Actions
- Routine Preventive Measures
Each year millions of consumers can have an adverse allergic reaction to foods. Food allergies can be mild or severe; in some instances, exposure can cause extremely serious reactions and even death. Because there is no permanent cure for food allergies, avoidance and early treatment of symptoms are the only management strategies available to affected individuals. There are over 160 different types of food known to trigger an allergic reaction in people with food allergies. Components in food that cause food allergy reactions are select, species-specific proteins. Improper label declaration of the presence of allergenic foods and ingredients is the leading cause of product recalls and contributes to unnecessary consumer exposure to allergens.
In the United States, the law identifies nine major allergenic foods and ingredients made from such foods that must be properly declared on food labels. These foods and ingredients derived from these foods account for 90 percent of food allergic reactions:
- Milk
- Eggs
- Fish (e.g., bass, flounder, cod)
- Crustacean shellfish (e.g., crab, lobster, shrimp)
- Tree nuts (e.g., almonds, walnuts, pecans)
- Peanuts
- Wheat
- Sesame
- Soybeans
- Cereals containing gluten, (e.g., wheat, rye, barley, oats, spelt, kamut or their hybridized strains)
- Crustaceans
- Eggs
- Fish
- Peanuts
- Soy
- Milk (including lactose)
- Nuts (e.g., almonds, hazelnuts, walnuts, cashews, pecan nuts, Brazil nuts, pistachio nuts, macadamia nuts and Queensland nuts)
- Celery
- Mustard
- Sesame seeds
- Sulphur dioxide and sulphites at concentrations of more than 10 mg/kg or 10 mg/L expressed as SO2.
- Lupine
- Molluscs
- Mustard
- Peanut
- Crustaceans & Molluscs
- Sesame Seeds
- Fish
- Soy
- Sulphites
- Tree Nuts
- Wheat and Triticale