Allergen and allergy risk assessment, allergen management, and gaps in the European Food Information Regulation (FIR)

Individuals su ering from IgE-mediated food allergies are obliged to systematically eliminate the culprit allergen from their diet. To support allergic consumers in avoiding food allergens to make informed and safe purchasing choices, the European Union (EU) Food Information Regulation (FIR) imposes a requirement to label the 13 most common allergenic foods (food groups) as ingredients in pre-packed and non-pre-packed foods. e as yet unregulated labelling of unintended presence of allergens has lead to a widespread use of precautionary allergen labelling (PAL) – despite established allergen management in many companies. is PAL signi…cantly hampers making a safe food choice, or renders it largely unfeasible, since it is not possible to estimate the actual extent to which allergens are present in a product. Not only food-allergic consumers, but also the food industry, physicians, dieticians/nutritionists, as well as food regulators and law enforcement o‰cers would bene…t from a standardized labelling regulation for unintended presence of allergens. e following position paper highlights the chances of such a regulation on the basis of availKey words