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Wednesday, March 29th 2023
FSA asks for guidance on may contain allergen labels
by New Food Magazine
“This new guidance will help ensure businesses and those living with food allergies and intolerances get the greatest possible benefit from PAL.” Rayner explained that the FSA is “committed to improving the provision of allergy information to ...
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The Food Standards Agency has asked for views and advice for how and when to apply for precautionary allergen labelling on food packaging.
Seeking consumer insight, the Food Standards Agency (FSA) has asked for advice when for how and when to apply for precautionary allergen labelling (PAL).
This form of labelling is commonly referred to as “may contain” on food packaging, something that indicates to consumers that a product potentially has traces of an allergen.
New advice states that food businesses should specify which of the 14 major allergens their PAL refers to. The FSA has also recommended that PAL should only be applied following a risk assessment “to ensure consumer safety and choice are not unnecessarily affected”.
The Agency is asking for opinions on the new guidance that PAL should not be applied for the same allergen that products are also claiming to be “free-from”. In practise, this would mean that a product labelled as “dairy free” should not be labelled with a “may contain milk”.
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In addition, the updated guidance also advises that businesses should not use No Gluten Containing Ingredients Statements (NGCIs), for example “this menu has been designed for a non-gluten diet”. Instead, the FSA recommends that only the phrases “gluten free” or “low gluten” should be used as NGCIs have reportedly mislead consumers.
The proposed changes were reportedly supported by over 90 percent of the respondents to the “May Contain Consultation” launched in December 2021.
“While the use of PAL is voluntary, it is important that it should be as accurate and helpful to consumers as possible when it is applied,” said Ben Rayner, FSA Food Hypersensitivity Team Leader.
“This new guidance will help ensure businesses and those living with food allergies and intolerances get the greatest possible benefit from PAL.”
Rayner explained that the FSA is “committed to improving the provision of allergy information to consumers” and that seeking advice is the “next step” in that process.
Allergens, Food Safety, Health & Nutrition, Labelling, Regulation & Legislation, The consumer
Food Standards Agency
UK & Ireland
Ben Rayner
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