Food Safety with Allergen Control

Food allergies are at the forefront of health problems around the world, including being one of the most common causes of emergency room visits in children. While there is no cure for food allergies, understanding and learning how to recognize, control, and prevent them is key for consumers and producers.

For food producers, label compliance and allergen control programs within their manufacturing site are some of the most important things they can do to provide safe products. This can be done in steps, starting with risk assessment, identifying the sources of allergen that are coming in from raw material, and determining where they could possibly contaminate within your facility. Once these steps have been completed, implementing control plans and executing at all levels should follow, helping to avoid potential cross-contamination. About 20% of product recalls associated with undeclared allergens are related to cross-contamination, which can happen at any stage in the manufacturing process. This is why it is important to ensure an allergen control plan that spans the entire stage of production.

When testing the environment to verify allergen control plans are working, a facility can be broken down into four zones.

• Zones 1 and 2: Food-contact and non-food contact surfaces. Close proximity to food and priority for allergen testing.
• Zones 3 and 4: Further removed from food-contact surfaces. Less frequency of testing.

Improper testing and technique are a primary reason for getting false negative results, so users want to make sure they are following proper test kit instructions.

What are allergen control plans?

There is written documentation regarding allergen controls throughout the entire stage of the lifecycle of the allergenic product within your facility. It is not a one-size-fits-all plan. It is going to vary from facility to facility, but it does include corrective control procedures, corrective actions for deviations, and recordkeeping procedures and training of your employees. Main components of these plans include supplier control, scheduling, physical barriers, and sanitation.

One of Neogen®’s specialties is allergen test kits, and one of our very first products was a peanut allergen test kit. Now, we offer 14 lateral flow test kits and 21 ELISA test kits.

For more details on allergen control plans and how to effectively use them to benefit your facility, listen to the webinar now.

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