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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®
Copyri
ght ©
2015 R
om
er
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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