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Food Allergen Management

Helping Industry Prevent Allergen Recalls

Free Industry Webinar Dec 9, 2015

Speaker: John Figgins, BCR Global Standards

Host: Jasmin Kraus, Romer Labs®

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Labs.

John Figgins

Technical Speacialist for Food,

BRC Global Standards

Degree in Applied Chemistry

Worked as Food Analyst and Science Officer, then as Chemical Safety Manager

Joined BRC Global Standards in 2012 – responsible for day to day management

BRC Global Standards is a safety and quality certification program with a worldwide network of certification bodies.

John Figgins – Technical Specialist - Food

Helping Industry to Prevent Allergen Recalls:

BRC Global Standard for Food Safety Issue 7

Agenda

Background

Overview of Good Practice

Specific considerations

Questions and close

What is a food allergy?

Allergy occurs when the immune system reacts adversely to a food or substance that is harmless for most people.

Symptoms include rashes, wheezing, itching, severe gut symptoms or in extreme cases, anaphylaxis.

Other conditions such as auto-immune conditions produce adverse symptoms in some individuals, e.g. coeliac disease

Sensitisation – immune system set up for future allergy

Very minor symptoms – tingle, itch …

Mild moderate symptoms

Life threatening symptoms

Death

Typical Symptoms

Categories of incidents dealt with by the

Food Standards Agency (UK)

Source: Food Standards

Agency (UK) Annual

Report of Incidents 2014

Source: The Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed

2014 annual report

RECALL BY REASON

“In 2014, the most common reason for recall was an

undeclared allergen, followed by Listeria monocytogenes,

extraneous material, and E coli. These products were

recalled because these problems went undetected.”

Undeclared allergens top US food

recall in 2014

What causes these incidents?

Unintentional presence of an allergen

• Cross-contamination during production

• Accidental addition of an allergen by using the wrong recipe

Mis-packing – the wrong packaging is used

• Insufficient or ineffective changeover controls

• Inadequate packaging management

Wrongly labelled packaging

• Specification errors

• Communication poor during packing development

• Ineffective change management when a recipe changes

• Ineffective sign-off of new packaging or print changes

• Error on printing

• Risk assessment of raw materials/suppliers

Suppliers

• Significance (Risk assessment)

• Identification

• Separation

• Scheduling

• Sanitation/Hygiene

• Rework

• Documentation – Policies & Procedures

Management of Allergens On site

• Accuracy of labels

• Packaging control

• Precautionary labelling

Labelling & Pack Control

Training

SuppliersUnderstanding the

materials that arrive on site

Raw material specifications

• Ingredients listed

• Knowledge of component parts, e.g. carriers,

additives, processing aids

• Avoid generic terms, e.g. vegetable oil

• List allergens and their derivatives from

ingredients, e.g. whey is a derivative of milk

• Cross-contamination risk

Sanitation

Frequently used as an allergen control

Methods must be designed to consistently achieve desired level of cleaning

Consider materials, chemicals, water (temperature, hardness), methods and equipment

Identify what needs to be cleaned and when

Validation, verification and monitoring

Establish sign-off processes

Document

Packaging

Label creation and maintenance

Packaging controls

On-pack warning labels

Label creation and maintenance

Procedures to ensure accurate information on label

Packaging is a raw material – subject to controls and approval

Ensure good communication between all relevant parties involved in packaging design

Establish sign-off by a qualified person

Labelling & Legislation

Legislation

Different legislation applies in different countries and geographic regions

Identifies those foods most likely to cause a reaction

Requires management of those ingredients

Requires products to be labelled if they deliberately contain those ingredients

Sites have to consider the legislative requirements in the countries they:

Buy raw materials from

Manufacture products

Sell products

Packaging controls

Start-up checks on the line

All packaging returned to storeroom

immediately after use

Ensure correct recipe is in correct

pack

New packaging must be verified as

correct

Storage should enable easy

identification of packaging

Multi-components of packaging

should be matched, e.g. pots

and lids

Any questions or points for discussion?

Best

Practice? Allergens?

Thank you!

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