Quantitative risk assessment of UK food products cross-contaminated with allergens

Authors

Benjamin C. Remington, TNO, Zeist, The Netherlands
Joseph L. Baumert, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow
Marty W. Blom, TNO, Zeist, The Netherlands
Geert F. Houben, TNO, Zeist, The Netherlands
Steve L. Taylor, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow
Astrid G. Kruizinga, TNO, Zeist, The Netherlands

Date of this Version

3-30-2015

Citation

Remington et al.: Quantitative risk assessment of UK food products cross-contaminated with allergens. Clinical and Translational Allergy 2015 5(Suppl 3):O10.

Comments

© 2015 Remington et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. Used by permission.

Abstract

Allergens in food pose a risk to allergic consumers, especially if they are present in food without declaration or warning. While there is EU regulation for allergens present as an ingredient, this is not the case for unintended allergen presence (UAP). Food companies use precautionary “may contain” labels to inform allergic individuals of a potential risk from UAPs. However, the use or absence of precautionary label has a limited correlation with the level of UAP and consequently the risk of an unexpected allergic reaction. Allergen risk assessment using probabilistic techniques enables estimation of the residual risk after the consumption of a product that unintendedly contains an allergen.