Allergen-related product recalls soar

Cock-ups on allergen labelling are set to increase in frequency in 2008, continuing the trend established last year associated with mislabelled products containing unlisted allergens.

Natural food and ingredients retailer Julian Graves recalled a batch of Milk Chocolate Coated Ginger due to possible nut contamination on Friday January 4. And just the day before Waitrose recalled its own-label Deliciously Different Lightly Spiced Cod with Couscous and Lentils because of a labelling error.

The Julian Graves incident followed a single complaint of a nut or nut fragment found in the product. The Waitrose incident involved a product packed with a soya and ginger dressing instead of a tomato and ginger dressing, thereby containing mustard and soya not mentioned on the label. This made it a possible health risk for people allergic to mustard or soya. The Food Standards Agency (FSA) issued an allergy alert advising anyone who is allergic to mustard or soya not to eat the product but return it to Waitrose for a full refund.

After a new procedure for allergy alerts was introduced by the FSA in March 2007, there were 61 allergy alerts issued in 2007. While there was no separate system for highlighting allergy alerts in 2006, as they were all included within the FSA’s general food alert notices, 50 allergen incidents were recorded. Of these, the vast majority involved incorrect product labelling and 20 resulted in food alerts for information purposes - half of which occurred in November and December alone. Throughout 2006, the FSA investigated a total of 1,342 incidents and issued 81 general food alerts.

“Allergy alerts are certainly on the increase and our new SMS text alert system aims to get information out to consumers directly,” reported an FSA spokeswoman.

Food Manufacture​ is organising a conference in Warwick on March 6 called Product Recall 2008: avoid, manage and survive​. Dealing with the problem of allergens will be one of the subjects addressed. For more details visit: http://www.product-recall.co.uk​