New VITAL and German Action Levels for Allergens - what will be the consequences for food producers and retailers
In 2007 the Australian Allergy Bureau published the so-called VITAL (Voluntary Incidental Trace Allergen Labelling) grid, which is supposed to provide guidance to industry at which content levels a product should contain no allergen advice, a "may contain" label or a "contain" label.
Those data have now been revised in the light of new clinical data and so-called meta-analysis of existing literature data, which is essentially the pooling of data from several peer reviewed publications and analysis for trends within that data pool.
The new, revised data are scheduled to be published in March 2012. In the first version of VITAL, action levels were expressed as concentrations with a 5 g serving size. VITAL 2.0 is aimed to address the use of different serving sizes appropriate to consumption patterns for individual foods.
In addition to these advances, the German enforcement authorities are discussing country-wide action levels for allergen labeling. One federal state of Germany has already stated its intended action levels.
The consequences for the food industry are dramatic. Previously, allergens in food were simply a question of absence or presence. Now action levels are available that allow producers to tailor their cleaning procedures and rethink their risk management approaches.
One of the challenging questions is: Can existing analytical technology support enforcement and quality control? Where are the pitfalls?
To inform you about these recent developments, we have organised a Eurofins Allergen Conference on 22. March 2012 in Hamburg, Germany to specifically address these and further issues.The conference is held in the German language.
On the 23rd March, a 45 min webinar in the English language will be held, about "allergen analysis in context with labeling thresholds or action levels", another one about "gluten-free products: reliability and liability" on 25th April. If you are interested to receive further information on our webinars, please register for our webinar mailinglist.
