Milk-related allergen recalls down 32% in 2008

There was a sharp drop in milk-related allergen-based recalls in 2008, although incidents relating to soya, cereals and nuts other than peanuts and celery were all up on the previous year, the Food Standards Agency (FSA) has revealed.

While milk was still the “major type of allergen incident”, there was a 32% decline in the number of milk-related incidents in 2008 compared with 2007, said the FSA in its third annual report on incidents.
This was partly due to improved allergen management in factories and partly due to an acceptance that, for plain chocolate, a ‘may contain milk’ advisory label might be unavoidable, said the FSA.
Plain chocolate was frequently the cause of allergy alerts due to accidental contamination with milk proteins, said the FSA. “Effective clean-down between production runs is difficult because water cannot be introduced into such environments as it affects the quality and appearance of the chocolate. It is likely that the level of cross-contamination of plain chocolate products with milk is high at the beginning of a production run, and that this would decline during the production run.”
After a meeting at the FSA with chocolate producers and retailers early last year, “businesses reassessed their practices and labelling, including the use of ‘may contain milk’ advisory labelling, and the trade associations produced general industry guidance on this issue to facilitate a consistent approach”, said the FSA.
There were more than 60 allergy-related product recalls in 2008, according to Sue Hattersley, head of the FSA’s allergy branch.
“The wrong product in the wrong packet is still the main cause, but is actually becoming less common. Other reasons are inconsistencies between what is in the allergens box and the ingredients declaration, or the labelling on the outer wraps of multipacks not correlating with labelling on individual packs.”
She added: “We’re also seeing more recalls because of cross-contamination as well as ‘free from’ products that test positive for allergens, although this might be due to more sampling by local authorities.”