In its Annual Report Of Incidents published this week, the FSA said that there had been 25 incidents relating to sulphites in 2009 compared with just 10 in 2008.
This made sulphites – which are widely used as preservatives in dried fruits, fruit juice, wine, beer, cider and meat products - the “largest sub-category of allergen incidents”.
It added: “We will be doing further work in future to try to establish why this is the case.”
On the plus side, allergen incidents relating to milk had dropped for the second year running, with 16 incidents in 2009 compared with 19 in 2008 and 28 in 2007.
This was partly due to improved allergen management in factories and partly due to an acceptance that for plain chocolate, a ‘may contains milk’ advisory label might be unavoidable, said the FSA.
The overall number of allergen-related incidents had also started to level off: “The total number of allergen incidents in 2009 stands at 86, an increase of only two incidents compared with 2008.”
RSSL head of allergen services Simon Flanagan told FoodManufacture.co.uk that the figures suggested the industry was “starting to get to grips with allergen management and tightening things up in terms of labelling controls”.
Unauthorised GM ingredients
There was, however, a sharp rise in the number of incidents related to unauthorised genetically modified ingredients (up from six incidents in 2008 to 16 in 2009).
In 2009, 1,208 incidents were investigated by the FSA, representing a slight decrease on 2008 (1,298 incidents).
The major categories were:
• Microbiological incidents – 18%
• Environmental contamination – 17%
• Natural chemical contamination (mycotoxins, algal toxins etc) – 12%
• On-farm incidents – 12%.
* RSSL is hosting a free allergen management seminar in Leeds on June 10 covering industry best practice, clinical developments and emerging allergens, sampling and analysis best practice and allergen management strategies.