With an increasingly high number of food allergies and intolerances being reported, demand for ‘free-from’ foods has soared over the last five years. Free-from foods pose unique problems to manufacturers, who not only have to address the effects that removal of core ingredients such as eggs, wheat or dairy products have on the manufacturing process, but also have to consider both the taste and nutritional value of the finished product .

Fortunately manufacturers are not alone in their quest, as suppliers are now offering a wide range of allergen-free ingredients, helping food and beverage manufacturers to create a wider variety of allergen-free products than ever before. In a recent special edition, FoodNavigator examined innovations in ingredients and technologies and lifted the veil on one of the biggest food safety markets of the future: allergen awareness.

Click on the links below to access the full articles:

‘Could this be the next peanut?’: Assessing novel allergen potential

Reflecting allergen risk with food labelling: ‘Free from’ and ‘may contain’

Lowering allergenic potential: Can new technologies help to reduce allergens?

Consumers equate ‘free-from’ with health: EUFIC

Following a plan recently proposed by the government, a unique and unified food labelling system will see the light of the day around summer 2013. The idea behind the new system is to offer consumers the opportunity to easily compare food labels from one supermarket to another and from one product to another with the minimum of fuss.

The proposed labelling is very simple and will comprise of colours codes (green, orange and red) and labels (low, medium and high) to indicate level of sugar, fat, salt, etc. The scheme is voluntary, but public health minister Anna Soubry says that “by having a consistent system we will all be able to see at a glance what is in our food. This will help us all choose healthier options and control our calorie intake”.

After the food hygiene rating system, will this new food labelling system lead to a supermarket food and drink hygiene rating?

Liquid nitrogen: a liquid that boils at -196 C and fascinates scientists and food professionals alike. But would you drink it? In a recent post on their official website, the FSA outlines the dangers of a product made ubiquitous by the likes of Heston Blumenthal in recent years…

The extremely cold temperature it reaches present a major risk to the human body if drunk or eaten, as teenager Gaby Scanlan recently experienced in Lancaster. The 18 year old girl drank two cocktails, both containing liquid nitrogen and suffered severe internal burns, forcing doctors to remove her entire stomach as a result of the damage caused.

This incident has led David Morris (Conservative MP for Morecambe and Lunesdale) to request parliament to ban the serving of all chemicals in drinks.

Scientists have also raised concerns, as liquid nitrogen is normally restricted to a medical or scientific environment but has recently become a more popular tool in the preparation of both food and drink.

The bar that served both drinks to Scanlan has been undergoing a police and council investigation since the incident.

At 3 o’clock today, the scientific journal Food and Chemical Toxicology is publishing the results of a study led by molecular biology professor Gilles-Eric Séralini. It is a bombshell of its own, with a scientific but also political impact.

For more than two years, a group of scientists secretly studied 200 rats fed with genetically modified maize, and the results of their study are quite intriguing!

Huge food safety risk for the consumer?

Those results are qualifying GMOs as “poison” according to the French scientist. Indeed after 12 months of experience, rats fed with GMOs – even at the lowest dose – were developing two to three times more tumours than normal rats. After 24 months (which is the equivalent of a lifetime for a rat) 50% to 80% of rats had developed a cancer, compared to 30% for the normal rats. Cancer is developed at a much younger age as well for rats fed with GMOs.

Interestingly this study was financed by French supermarket CEOs, who are willing to avoid a new Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE, or commonly known as mad cow disease) scandal.

Please find more details from our sister website TheGrocer: Monsanto Roundup weedkiller and GM maize implicated in ‘shocking’ new cancer study

 The next FSA open Board meeting will be held at the Hilton Hotel in Belfast on the 12^th of September, from 9am to 12. Chairman will be Agency Chair Jeff Rooker.

 Should you not be around Belfast, the online world is now offering you the opportunity to virtually attend this board meeting live via a direct video link, or later via a podcast.

 Following the meeting is a question-answer session with members of the public, so if you have any comment regarding food safety you can make them known beforehand as well by emailing boardquestion@foodstandards.gsi.gov.uk.

The discussed topics will be the following ones:

• Strategy on charging for meat official controls
• Rating scheme of local authorities in Wales following audit
• Report on progress for official controls delivery

Please find all information about watching the meeting live by accessing the Food Safety Agency page.

The online world seems to be definitely taking over the world of food safety, as not only can your staff pass their food safety certificates all online 24/7, but the FSA itself is offering you the opportunity to virtually not miss any new development! That’s a brilliant and efficient world we’re living in, isn’t it?

The sixth edition of the British Retail Consortium’s audit in January 2012, gave food manufacturers the conclusion that they will have to improve their food safety practices.

Best practices will now be considered as the minimum standards, implying everyone leverage their current standards. Unfortunately, this decision leaves companies being audited first with less time to prepare them.

Version six of BRC emphasizes cleaning and allergen control; therefore companies will not only have to demonstrate they respect food hygiene standards, but also prove that it is done in an effective manner.

Higher standards also mean tougher rules, and if a company operates strict allergen policies, what its food workers bring on-site for lunch will be documented. Auditors are now expected to spend more time in the factory itself, with far more in-depth inspections.

Has the version six of the BRC had any impact on your business? Have you been audited yet? If yes, do not hesitate to share your views with us.

If you read this blog, you are perfectly aware that food safety is a growing topic to avoid product recalls (especially in North America and Europe) with the problem of allergens, and to avoid casualties in the processing and manufacturing environment caused by manipulation of hazardous substances.

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With food hygiene and food safety rules becoming tougher, the importance of being legally compliant as a business and training staff accordingly has never been as challenging as it is today. That is the reason why at William Reed eLearning we are happy to introduce you our four new courses:

• Allergen awareness
• Cleaning in the Food Industry
• COSHH (Control of substances Hazardous to Health) in the Food Industry
• Managing Disinfection and Sanitisation

These courses are all accredited by City & Guilds, available 24/7 through our eLearning platform, and satisfy legal requirements.

Should you need more information about our courses, do not hesitate to leave a comment or directly contact us.

A food hygiene rating scheme has been deployed by the Food Safety Agency for all food businesses. Ratings are available at the business premises and online.

Following a meeting in Cardiff, the FSA plans to make audit reports as widely available as possible for the public. According to Terence Collins, FSA’s Director of communication, the reason behind this decision is to make ratings simple and easily understood for every single business.

Apart from Scotland which is under a very simple Food Hygiene Information Scheme, the FSA’s Food Hygiene Rating Scheme will be tested throughout United Kingdom.

As a result, ratings will range from 0 (improvement urgently needed) to 5 (very good), and will have to be displayed on a certificate. This information will also be made available online, at www.food.gov.uk/ratings.

Rating primary meat processing plants is the next step forward for the FSA, as meat audit are currently only available through Freedom of Information requests.

Is this information correctly displayed within your business? Please do not hesitate to comment this article to let us know.

According to the Food Standards agency, the bacteria campylobacter is the most common cause of food poisoning in the UK. It is responsible for over 403,000 cases in England and Wales in 2010 resulting in more than 19,000 hospitalisations and 96 deaths.

Rick Pendrous from FoodManufacture.co.uk recently had the chance to speak to the FSA’s chief scientist Dr Andrew Wadge.

RP: Andrew, the FSA is already working with the food industry to reduce the levels of campylobacter contamination in poultry both on farms and along the supply chain, what measures are being considered?

AW: You are absolutely right Rick to highlight the importance of campylobacter as the major source of food poisoning in the UK and indeed across Europe, it is actually affecting 9 million people each year across Europe. So there is no simple, easy solution to this; what we are looking at, working with industry, a whole range of measures from increasing biosecurity within the poultry houses to potential measures in the slaughter houses and leak-proof packaging material that might help protect the consumers from spreading bugs when they purchase food within the retail sector.

So we have put a challenge out to the chicken supply industry. What can you do right through the supply to reduce the contamination or the level of campylobacter at each point throughout the supply chain?

RP: New technology offers potential to reduce the level of campylobacter contamination even further, what are the barriers to introducing these new technics?

AW: One of the really hopeful approaches of so called “antimicrobial treatment agents”, lactic acid is one potential that we know has worked in New Zealand and other parts of the world; it has had a major effect in reducing the load of campylobacter in chicken and indeed a subsequent reduction in the number of human cases of campylobacteriosis. So we know that these antimicrobial treatment agents work, we know they can reduce food poisoning, protect people from getting sick and we also know through the advisory committee experts such as FSA that they are not introducing any additional risk. What are the barriers? Those barriers are ones of perception and politics. We have to be able to bring consumers and the politicians along to understand that the benefits of introducing these controlled measured will outwait any potential risk.

RP: I gather that as well as lactic acid washes even viruses known as bacteriophages have been considered as potential decontaminants for poultry, do you think the public will ever find the use of virus treatment on their food acceptable?

AW: I fundamentally am an optimist and I am also a scientist and I believe that if you spend sufficient time engaging with consumers, engaging with the public, explaining technology and explaining the risk of campylobacter and just how important that risk is, and the potential benefits of introducing controlled measures, and that you are opened and transparent about  the science and technology that you use in those controlled measures then I think that we have a fair chance in the long-term of introducing those measures.

So there you have it, much more could be done to reduce the campylobacter along the food supply chain, but not only must the safety of new technics be risk-assessed it is necessary to get consumer acceptance for them, and that is by no means guaranteed.