Management of allergens in the gastronomy
- 15.07.2013
- English Articles
- Cornelia Schreder
- Birgit Wild
- Margret Jäger
- Sonja Reiselhuber-Schmölzer
- Barbara Prüller-Strasser
Peer-reviewed | Manuscript received: January 9, 2013 | Revision accepted: March 27, 2013
Difficulty of cross-contamination referred to the context of food regulatory
Introduction
The new Food Information Regulation will regulate allergen labelling for unpacked food from 13 December 2014 in the European Union, which will affect restaurants and gastronomy/catering businesses, among others. This article provides an insight into the problems of allergen cross-contamination, ascertained by means of film recordings and analytical allergen detection during food preparation in kitchens or industrial kitchens. Practical methods for prevention are demonstrated.
Food intolerances, as distinct from immune-mediated food allergies and non-immunological food intolerances, are becoming more prevalent. Identifying suspect foods in the course of industrial food processing is increasingly difficult. The processing of basic foodstuffs used as auxiliary materials (e.g. lactoprotein, egg) in the smallest amounts, which are not expected in the processed food, can exacerbate the situation for allergy sufferers [1, 2].
Summary
The new EU Food Information Regulation, which comes into effect on 13 December 2014, provides for the compulsory labelling of all allergens subject to labelling requirements on unpacked food. Different restaurants and gastronomy/catering businesses will be required to clearly identify all allergens appearing in dishes, e.g. on the menu. The catering industry will also be subject to an additional requirement: assessing the risk of cross-contamination.
This was visualized in this study by means of film recordings during routine stages of food production and/or preparation. In parallel, allergen test strips from Romer Labs® were used to analytically detect “carried over” traces of allergens. This potential danger could be minimized by regular hygiene measures (washing hands with detergent, disinfection). The implementation of this labelling requirement is made more difficult by the absence of so-called threshold values for all 14 allergens. Hitherto, threshold values exist only for sulphites and gluten.
Keywords: Food Information Regulation, allergens subject to labelling requirements, restaurants, gastronomy/catering businesses, cross-contamination, hygiene measures
