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Revised 2007 Allergen Management and Labelling Guide

The revised 2007 Allergen Management and Labelling Guide was launched on June 13, 2007. Developed by the Australian Food and Grocery Council Allergen Forum, the guide provides direction on best practice for managing and labelling allergens in foods and ingredients. The guide is relevant to all sectors of the food industry, including primary production, processing, distribution and retail sectors.

Importantly, the guide outlines a new risk assessment tool, called Voluntary Incidental Trace Allergen Labelling (VITAL), that can be used to assess whether foods need to be labelled with a precautionary statement.

The relatively high number of food recalls due to incorrectly declared presence of allergens (one-third of Australian food recalls in 2006) demonstrates industry's failure to meet current regulatory requirements and the need for clearer labelling guidelines. Consumers are also struggling to decipher currently used labelling statements, such as, 'Made on equipment that also processes. . .' as shown in a 2003 survey (http://www.foodstandards.gov.au/newsroom/publications/allergensurvey/index.cfm).

The guide recommends replacing all forms of precautionary statements with a single term 'May be present' and emphasises this statement must only be used if the VITAL assessment concludes it is required. The guide stresses that attempting to eliminate or minimise the risk of allergens coming into contact with food should be the main priority, instead of relying on the use of a precautionary statement as a generic disclaimer.

A comprehensive section on recommended labelling formats is included in the guide. These formats are designed to help allergenic consumers quickly and easily identify allergen information, reducing the risk of accidental exposure. An example of a recommended labelling format is:

INGREDIENTS
Water, vegetable oil, vinegar, cane sugar, tomato paste (5%), salt, parmesan cheese (2%), egg yolk, maize thickener (1412), almonds, red capsicum, soybean oil, garlic (1.0%), vegetable gum (415), spice, herbs, wheat cornflour, flavour (wheat maltodextrin, sesame oil), antioxidant (320).

Contains milk, egg, almonds, soy, wheat and sesame.

May be present: xxx. (only used if identified by VITAL to be necessary)

Other key recommendations in the guide include:

  • Using a risk management approach such as a Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) program to minimise unintended presence of allergenic substances in foods
  • Adopting a single, national Product Information Form (PIF) to facilitate collection of ingredient information from suppliers in a clear and standardised format
  • Ingredient suppliers, as well as manufacturers, should use the VITAL tool to identify the actual risk of unintentional presence of food allergens through cross contact

The guide, the detailed VITAL procedure and the PIF documents are freely available from the Allergen Bureau website: http://www.allergenbureau.net/. Interested companies are encouraged to register their interest in VITAL so that they can be kept up to date of future changes.