The Food Standards Agency (FSA) has released the results of a survey into allergen labelling on foods being sold by UK supermarkets and independent retailers.
The survey examined the type of allergen advisory labelling present and aimed to quantify the level of allergens resulting from cross-contamination and establish whether the type of advisory labelling used related to the level of allergen present.
The FSA looked at 508 pre-packed processed foods from a range of retail outlets across the UK, sampling an equal number of comparable products with allergen advisory statements and without. The samples were tested for the presence and quantity of milk, gluten, peanut and hazelnut.
The percentage of samples with detectable allergen, present as an unintentional ingredient but without an advisory label was 3.3% for gluten, 2.1% for milk and 0% for hazelnut and peanut.
The percentage of samples with no allergen present but with an advisory label was 45% for peanut, 44% for hazelnut, 19% for gluten and 19% for milk.
Sarah Hardy, FSA Food Allergy Research Manager, commented: “The number of samples with advisory labelling but no detectable hazelnut or peanut was just below 50%. Only gluten and milk were present as cross-contamination without advisory labelling. However, the levels found in the products were low so the FSA did not consider it to be a risk for people with allergies.”
She added that the results suggest that cross contamination for all four allergens is well controlled by manufacturers and that undeclared allergen cross-contamination in the UK is lower than in other countries.
In 2006, the FSA introduced ‘best practice’ guidance on managing food allergens to assists the food industry in the use of advisory labelling. However, the study found that a wide variety of different statements were used across the product categories, and only 28% of products followed FSA advice in the use of specific phraseology that advises using ‘may contain X’ or ‘not suitable for someone with an X allergy’. These two statements were found on 20.6% and 7.2% of products, respectively. The most used statements were ‘may contain traces’ (38%) and ‘may contain (20.6%).
The wording of the advisory labels were found not to reflect the level of cross-contamination found for any of the four allergens.
