Conference tackles effective presentation of food allergens in product labelling

Experts convened at the International Fresenius Conference in Dortmund, Mainz in Germany to discuss how food allergens can best be communicated on packaging. The most effective protection against the occurrence of allergic reactions is the abstinence from allergenic foods. But these can only be identified by consumers, if there is a clear label on the product packaging. How such a declaration had to look like to achieve an optimal effect and what approaches exist to handle the problem legally, became obvious at the fifth conference of its kind held on 29 to 30 October 2012.

Japan: First to implement labels on allergenic foods

A country that has gone the road of labelling potentially allergenic foods more than a decade ago is Japan. As the first country to do so, Japan introduced mandatory labelling for pre-packaged products with allergic ingredients for which the occurrence of allergic reactions was frequently observed in 2001, Reiko Teshima of National Institute of Health Sciences, Japan said. Currently, eggs, milk, wheat, buckwheat, peanuts, shrimp and crabs required compulsory labelling. In addition, the national law recommended the labelling of 18 other allergic ingredients Japan controlled the compliance with the rules with a special monitoring system, in which the labels as well as the manufacturing records were analysed through ELISA-methods and confirmation tests. According to Mr Teshima, when manufacturers checked their product ingredients insufficiently or made simple mistakes during the production process and inadequate labelling and the undeclared presence of an allergen was demonstrated through inspections or consumer complaints, manufacturers and retailers would have to recall the relevant product. The case would then have to be reported to the local government and the Consumer Affairs Agency which has been responsible for the compliance with the labelling requirements since 2009. Aside from this, a warning notice would be published on the Internet.

Canada: Warnings have to be effective

Samuel Godefroy from Health Canada argued in favour of meaningful and effective precautionary labelling on product packaging. Recent studies had shown that many labels would not provide meaningful information for the consumers what would result in allergic consumers misinterpreting the actual risk and consuming critical products despite warnings, Mr Godefroy explained. In a Canadian survey from 2008 more than 90% of people with allergies would have stated, that the warning   "not suitable for people with an allergy to ..." was most likely to prevent them from purchasing a product. All the same, 87% had said that the phrase "may contain ..." would also have good deterring power. However, the warning "may contain traces of..." had proved as the least effective warning: only 72% haLevis X Jordan 6