Whether your facility is dedicated to producing allergen free products, or includes lines shared with allergen containing recipes, identifying hazard points is your first step in managing the risk of cross contamination. Where is contamination most likely to occur? Which of your ingredients are highest-risk, and which steps in your manufacturing process are most likely to involve inadvertent exposure to allergens? A well-thought-out quality control plan takes experience and expertise to develop and to implement, but will result in benefits to your final product and ultimately the consumer.
The FDA provides information to manufacturers about compliance with the Food Allergen Labeling and Consumer Protection Act of 2004 (Title II of Public Law 108-282). The FDA does not have a specified acceptable PPM or PPB limit on allergen contamination. There are many certification agencies and food safety consultants happy to review your facility’s current practices and work with you to develop or refine your HACCP plan to include allergen best practices.
Creating a safe, contamination-free environment for food production is different for every facility. The growing concern for consumer safety and compliance with the international guidelines for allergen labeling encouraged Biomedal to develop AlerTox detection kits.
“Manufacturers may now quickly and easily check their food during the production process and ensure it is labeled correctly,” said Catherine Torgler, International Business Development Manager at Biomedal. “With AlerTox, it is much more economical to test ingredients and finished products than to suffer the consequences of an expensive and damaging product recall.”
The Big 8, plus 1
Over 160 foods can cause allergic reactions of various severity, but the majority of these reactions are caused by just eight of them. AlerTox Sticks kits are specially designed to help food manufacturers monitor levels of these common allergenic proteins at every step of production and in a variety of matrices. Depending on your matrix and on the various allergen, the PPM threshold will vary slightly.
- Almond
- Crustacean
- Egg
- Fish
- Hazelnut
- Milk
- Mustard
- Peanut
- Soy
Easy to use; no equipment needed.
AlerTox is a full line of user-friendly kits that detect common allergens in ingredients and on surfaces. AlerTox is designed to be easy-to-use, accurate, and able to detect low levels of allergenic proteins found in foods and liquids and on preparatory surfaces. And the best part is that no equipment is needed. AlerTox is the ideal solution for food and drink manufacturers or industrial kitchens who want to offer allergen-free products and comply with FDA labeling guidelines. The Food Allergen Labeling and Consumer Protection Act (FALCPA) requires that all packaged food products that contain any of the Big 8 as an ingredient must list it on the label.
Versatile and accurate testing
AlerTox Sticks kits excels at specificity, sensitivity, and speed. Testing with AlerTox won’t give you positive for an allergen when a protein from a non-specified ingredient is present. This is especially important when testing ingredients, since other proteins that are essential to the product are present. Even in evaluating cleaning, you won’t get false positives like you would from a test that looks only for protein molecules.
AlerTox kits come with everything that you need to conduct ten tests on either ingredients or surfaces, and are available through our website. Contact us to talk about other available test kits.
Emport has developed posts about each of the allergens that the AlerTox Sticks kits cover. You can read more at the following links.
