Abstract

Avoiding allergenic ingredients is the principal means whereby allergic consumers can manage their conditionand avoid severe and possibly fatal reactions. Mitigating risks from the inadvertent inclusion of allergens forms the core ofallergen management during food production. As with other elements of food safety management, allergen managementmust be integrated into food production at all stages from the field to the final consumer. Critical activities aim to segregateallergens from other ingredients (and each other), while risk assessment indicates whether the level of residual allergen islikely to prove hazardous. Information and methodologies to undertake this assessment have been lacking but newapproaches, allied with new data, now make quantitative evaluation of such risks a real possibility.