An Investigation of the Adventitious Presence of Four Legislated Food Allergens in Prepacked Food
- Project start date: 1 January 2017
- Project status: Completed
- Project type: Food safety
- Discipline: Food chain
- Principal researcher/s: Dr Orla Cahill, Dublin Institute of Technology
Research objective
Accurate labelling of prepacked food products is essential for food hypersensitive consumers to make safe food choices.
In this study, food products were selected for gluten or peanut allergen analysis (sometimes both), based on an analysis of product recalls in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland between 2011 and 2017.
The samples were analysed using two different commercially available enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays per allergen, followed by real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction (q-PCR) for verification purposes.
Outputs
Research report
- Title: Food allergens in prepacked foods
- Publication date: 1 February 2018
- Summary: There is a clear need to develop a robust, reliable and inexpensive method for detection of peanut, gluten and other allergens in pre-packaged and processed foods.
- Findings:
The outcome of the peanut analyses was inconclusive as a cross-reaction with other allergenic proteins in the food matrices could not be discounted. The food products that tested positive for peanut listed some form of tree nuts or legumes as ingredients on the label.
Nonetheless, the findings from the first enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay screening using 2 different kits were a cause for concern as several products had peanut levels in excess of 20 parts per million and any precautionary allergen labelling referred only to nuts.
The gluten analyses showed that the use of the advisory statement “gluten-free” was robust and reliable. Just one product had detectable gluten in both screenings and this was well below the threshold for “gluten-free” labelling.
Real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction proved to be an ineffective method for quantifying peanut allergen or gluten in this study.
- Recommendations:
- Food manufacturers should include allergen advice statements such as PAL only where absolutely necessary.
- Where feasible, adding an advisory “free from” statement would give food-hypersensitive consumers more confidence in making safe choices of food products, as well as making a wider range of food products more accessible to them.
- Food manufacturers should develop and implement specific Allergen Management Plans, separate to their existing Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Plans, to manage allergenic ingredients and the potential for cross-contamination. This should extend from pre- to postproduction of packaged food products – from the raw food supplier to the retailer or food outlet.
- Allergic consumers must always investigate the ingredients list for the presence of allergens to which they react. They also need to consider any PAL present.
- Currently, ELISA is the method of choice employed for the detection of allergens in foods. However, this technique has its drawbacks, such as cross-reactivity of peanut allergens with those from soy, chickpeas, almonds and hazelnut. There is now a clear need to develop a robust, reliable and inexpensive method for detection of peanut, gluten and other allergens in pre-packaged and processed foods.
You can download the report below.
