“Education of consumers, healthcare providers, food business operators, risk assessors and risk managers is critical to PAL management” (FAO/WHO 2021)             Introduction     What is PAL?  PAL means precautionary allergen labelling. It is sometimes also referred to as the “ [...]

Why doing Precautionary Allergen Labelling right matters.   Let’s take a short walk through history. Back in 1985, the Codex Alimentarius published its ground-breaking labelling standard (FAO/WHO 1985) for the labelling of pre-packaged foods. It was meant to be a better, more harmonized way to inform consumers about the composition of th [...]

Meaningful reporting best practice linking customer, method developer, laboratory, and risk assessor to generate confidence and trust in allergen analysis.         Increased momentum on the risk assessment and risk management of food allergens suggests we may be on the cusp of real progress that will help consumers, food busines [...]

The historical lack of reference materials for food allergens limited the possibility to evaluate the performances of detection methods. Generon makes available a new range of reference materials suitable for any downstream detection method.         Food allergies are a growing health burden worldwide. Although the true prevale [...]

With support from the EITFood program, researchers from ISPA-CNR developed the NUTRIBOX e-commerce platform based on safe and nutritionally balanced virtual shelves to increase consumer protection and to guide vulnerable people in making safe and mindful food choices.           After the pandemic: changes in eating habits a [...]

The safety and regulatory procedures of plant-based meat alternatives have recently been questioned. Many food safety experts advise against regularly consuming plant-based meat due to the possible presence of allergens, anti-nutrients, and thermally generated carcinogens.    Consumer’s increased desire for meat substitutes may be t [...]

A mandatory, unique, standardized register for all EU member States is necessary, despite the difficulties of implementation. However, such a register is still a long way off.         Introduction   While most people around the world can enjoy their meals without a second thought, for an unlucky few, what is on their plate [...]

A perfect tool for implementing the allergen analysis as part of the food safety quality control assessment.   It is well known that food allergies are an immune system reaction to a food or a substance in food. Even a tiny amount of allergy-causing food can trigger signs and symptoms such as digestive problems, hives or swollen airways. In s [...]

New assay for measurement of gluten in oats and avoiding false negatives in the analysis of milk substitutes.     While there are many kits available for the detection of gluten from wheat, barley and rye, there has not been a reliable kit for the detection of oat prolamins until now.  ELISA Systems has recently released a kit for t [...]

An International Standard based Real-Time PCR detection portfolio.   DNA based technology is a relatively new approach for the detection of food allergens, a field traditionally dominated by immunoassays.   DNA methods are indirect methods to detect food allergens as they do not detect the allergenic protein itself, but the DNA sequences [...]

Introducing alternative and sustainable sources of proteins in the human diet is crucial to guarantee nutrition security while reducing the impact on the environment. Allergenicity assessment of novel ingredients aims to provide safe food to consumers.         Introduction     The world population is increasing by 1% e [...]

Do method sensitivities comply with recommended allergen reference doses? The ThRAll-EFSA project is developing a tool to quantify allergens in complex foods using MS techniques for improved analytical accuracy.     The size of the food allergy problem Food allergies are a growing health burden worldwide. Although the true prevalence of f [...]

While consumers around the globe have gradually lost trust in poorly-applied precautionary allergen labelling (PAL) schemes, the UK food industry appears to be willing to embrace the new allergen approach utilising allergen thresholds.      Introduction Food allergies are a significant problem, with an estimated 20 million sufferers [...]

Do we know how many people suffer from food allergies?        The socio-economic impact of food allergies  Allergy-related health loss is estimated to be of the same order of magnitude as prostate cancer or rheumatoid arthritis and it may be more severe than that of heart disease, skin cancer, or Parkinson’s disease ( [...]

European Union, USA, Canada, Hong Kong, Australia, and New Zelando: an update      Abstract  As part of an EU-funded project (FP7) to develop “Integrated approaches to food allergen and allergy management”, a database was constructed from publicly available information on allergen recalls between 2011 and 2014 in Eur [...]