Risk assessment of food allergens: part 3: review and establish precautionary labelling in foods of the priority allergens: meeting report

Overview

FAO and WHO reconvened a third meeting to review and evaluate the evidence in support of precautionary allergen labelling to address unintended allergen presence in foods.

The Expert Committee at the third meeting reviewed the data on the current status and uses of precautionary allergen labelling (PAL) and unanimously agreed that current PAL systems used in many countries needed to be improved as they were neither uniform nor informative and were not consistently risk based on amount and frequency of UAP found in food products. The Expert Committee also found that current PAL approaches led to widespread PAL that diminished information and value for consumers. The Expert Committee reviewed again the principles and basis of RfD from the second meeting and reached a consensus that the RfD for each priority allergen, as described by the HBGV and safety objectives, was a valid risk assessment endpoint for determining when sporadic or unexpected UAP posed more than appreciable risk to consumers and needed to be communicated to consumers by PAL.