Food Safety Standard

What are food allergies?

Food allergy is an adverse health effect arising from a specific immune-mediated response that occurs reproducibly on oral exposure to a given food.

Globally, over 220 million people must avoid certain foods because of allergies. Protecting allergic individuals from harm requires a concerted effort involving not only the provision of appropriate and accessible information to
consumers, but also the commitment from health care professionals, regulatory and governance frameworks, the scientific community, and the food industry. The gravity of disease caused by food allergens and the limited treatment options underline the need to know which foods are most associated with severe food allergies.

Food allergen reference doses:

What are reference doses?

Reference doses are small, milligram amounts of total protein from the allergenic food which meet the criterion for health-based guidance values (HBGV) and “reflect a range of exposure without appreciable health risk.”

recommend that the RfD values should be expressed as milligrams of total protein from the allergenic source, since the (allergenic) protein constitutes the hazard to individuals with food allergy;

recommend RfDs are risk-based and derived from global data;

utilize a guiding principle of whether selecting a more stringent (lower) value would materially improve the public health impact;

envision the RfDs could be used for management of UAP in foods, such as application in the management of precautionary allergen labelling (PAL), decisions on recall, trade rejection, as well as advice to people with food allergies and outcome measures for food immunotherapy studies;

“group” the RfDs by rounding values down to a single significant figure for conservatism and simplification; and

stress that the RfD is not appropriate, nor intended to be used to define “allergen-free” labelling.

Precautionary Allergens Labelling:

The Risk Assessment of Food Allergens Review and Establish Precautionary Labelling (PAL) in Foods of the Priority Allergens provides a structured, quantitative assessment framework and recommendations for PAL, a voluntary warning which first appeared in the 1980s as an attempt by the food industry to remedy the issues arising from the lack of data to characterize the risk to health posed by an unintended allergen presence (UAP) due to allergen cross-contact. In providing a risk-based system for PAL, it captures recent growth and experience in this field, which continues to evolve in line with science and risk management demands.

Potential to enhance in consumer protection:

The current use of PAL is voluntary and often not part of a standardized risk assessment process. This leads to non-uniform and indiscriminate application of PAL (including a multitude of different phrases), as well as inappropriate absence of PAL. Consumers find the information currently provided by PAL to be confusing. This results in poor communication and misinterpretation of the risks posed by UAP, a reduction in consumer trust in allergen labelling, increased consumption of foods with relevant allergen labelling, and proven health risks to the allergic consumer.

However, PAL based on a comprehensive allergen risk management programme and supported by effective risk communication, is an effective strategy to protect consumers from UAP due to allergen cross-contact.

Exemptions from mandatory food allergen declaration:

Risk-based exemptions from mandatory food allergen declaration:

The Risk Assessment of Food Allergens : Establishing Exemptions from Mandatory Declaration for Priority Food Allergens recommends a risk-based framework for assessing whether certain foods and ingredients, such as highly refined foods and ingredients, that are derived from the list of priority food allergens can be exempted from mandatory food allergen labelling.