Update on Food Allergen Labelling Legislation

Current labelling requirements for allergens

The requirement to label allergenic ingredients used in pre-packed food was introduced in 2004 through the Food Labelling (Amendment) (England) (No 2) Regulations 2004.**   These Regulations were to implement the allergens listed in Annex IIIa of European Directive 2003/89/EC.

This requires 12 listed allergens listed below in Table 1 to be labelled whenever present in pre-packed foods from 25th November 2005:

Table 1

The following cereals containing gluten: wheat, rye, barley, oats, spelt, kamut and their hybridised strains.
Crustaceans.
Eggs.
Fish.
Peanuts.
Soybeans.
Milk.
The following nuts: Almond (Amygdalus communis L.), Hazelnut (Corylus avellana), Walnut (Juglans regia), Cashew (Anacardium occidentale), Pecan nut (Carya illinoiesis (Wangenh.) K. Koch), Brazil nut (Bertholletia excelsa), Pistachio nut (Pistacia vera), Macadamia nut and Queensland nut (Macadamia ternifolia)
Celery.
Mustard.
Sesame seeds.
Sulphur dioxide and sulphites at concentrations of more than 10 mg/kg or 10 mg/litre expressed as SO2.

In addition, The Food Labelling (Amendment) (England) (No 2) Regulations 2005** provided temporary labelling exemptions for a number of products derived from the specific allergenic ingredients identified in the Food Labelling (Amendment) (England) (No 2) Regulations 2004. This was until the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) had completed food safety reviews on the derivatives. These exempted foods are shown in Table 2.

** Separate but parallel legislation was made in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Table 2

Outcome of European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) derivative reviews

In light of the technical opinions from EFSA on dossiers submitted by manufactures of allergen derivative foodstuffs, the European Commission published Directive 2007/68/EC identifying those derivatives that should be permanently exempted from the allergen labelling provisions. 

It also identified those derivatives that will now require labelling.  These are shown in Table 3.  

It is currently proposed by the FSA on Draft consultation on The Food Labelling (Declaration of Allergens) Regulations 2008 that these ingredients in Table 3 will continue to be exempted from labelling until 31st May 2009 after which time they must be labelled. Any products that have been labelled under the old rules and are still on the market at that date may continue to be sold until stocks are exhausted. 

Table 3

Allergen:                           Derivative:

Egg                                   egg albumin fining agent for wine and cider

Fish                                   isinglass fining agent for cider

Milk                                   casein fining agent for wine and cider

Almonds / walnuts              used to flavour spirits

Celery                               in any form – celery leaf and seed oil, celery seed oleoresin

Mustard                             in any form – mustard oil and mustard seed oil, mustard seed

                                        oleoresin

The FSA consultation into the above amendments, which closed on 14th March 2008 may be found at:http://www.food.gov.uk/consultations/consulteng/2008/allergenlabeleng2008

The results of the consultation are currently awaited, which will be linked to the above page.

Other foods for allergen labelling

European Directive 2006/142/EC, as implemented in the UK by The Food Labelling (Declaration of Allergens) Regulations 2007 has added the requirement to label 2 more allergens. These are  Lupin and Mollusc foodstuffs which must be labelled on all foods produced from 23rd December 2008.

Labelling advice is provided by the FSA as to how these foods should be labelled:

Lupin –  refers to both lupin seed and lupin flour. The appropriate term should be used in labelling. The rules do not name any particular species of lupin and therefore should be applied to all.  There is cross reactivity to lupin in a significant number of people allergic to peanuts.

Molluscs:

The rules do not name any species of mollusc because ‘molluscs’ include all species of mollusc ( for example oyster, squid, cockles, mussels, periwinkle and scallops as well as land molluscs such as snails). The generic terms provisions allow the generic term ‘mollusc’ to be used in an ingredient list only where there is no other reference to a species of mollusc on the label.

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