Category: Allergens

Banoffee tart box. New York Cheesecake inside.

Posted on November 28, 2011 by Richard Mallett

I guess it’s no wonder that extremely stringent packaging check procedures are demanded by Issue 6 of the BRC Global Food Standard when you read this article from the Food Standards Agency. This is a fairly basic and avoidable error. Let’s hope that the Issue 6 BRC Standard requirement to look at root cause when things like this happen will help.

What could be the root causes of packing the food into the wrong packaging? A number of potential scenarios reveal themselves here including:

  • Not removing old packaging before a new production run.
  • Good old fashioned human error and carelessness.
  • Failure to exercise product release procedures to check that everything is as expected before food leaves the factory.
  • Lack of training and real staff involvement in food safety and quality procedures.

Food Standards Agency 2009 Incident Report

Posted on July 2, 2010 by Richard Mallett

FSA Incidents Report 2009

MQM’s Midlands based consultant Paul Newman has looked into the Food Standards Agency ‘annual report of 2009’ – some interesting facts have emerged!

In 2009 the agency issued 91 alerts, of which 49 were allergen alerts.

In total the agency investigated over 1200 incidents including food contact packaging, pesticides and unauthorised ingredients. Download the full report here:-

http://www.food.gov.uk/multimedia/pdfs/incidents09.pdf

It is a key requirement for food safety accreditation such as SALSA  and BRC Global Standards for companies to have procedures in place for the management of incidents, product withdrawal and product recall. The management of allergens must also be addressed through risk assessment, taking into account the possibility of site allergen cross contamination, out of date supplier specifications,  incorrect labelling information and the potential incorrect use of the wrong label.

How do you ensure your food contact packaging is safe?

How do you avoid becoming of the 49 allergen alerts?

How do you find out about food safety issues?

Do you have an effective recall/withdrawal procedure in place and more importantly does it work?

Help is at hand as MQM Consulting have the experience to help you develop a system to help you ensure that if an incident happens you can confidently withdraw/recall the effected product.

MQM have recently opened a Birmingham office to serve the Midlands, North and beyond. This complements our South Eastern head quarters.

We specialise in Food safety systems such as BRC Global Standards & SALSA, Supplier auditing, food hygiene training and Microbiology.

If you are looking for consultancy help, please use the contact form and a consultant will be in touch

The Big Allergy Myth???

Posted on February 10, 2010 by Richard Mallett

A report in “The Week” magazine of 30/1/2010 provided some interesting numbers. It quoted that around 20% of adults in the UK believe they are intolerant of, or allergic to, some form of food with wheat being the most commonly cited. In the same article it was pointed out that researchers at Portsmouth University discovered that fewer than 2% actually have a problem, which means that millions of people may be unnecessarily avoiding food of one type or another. Figures quoted from 2009 showed 4.5% of people thought they were allergic to wheat whereas fewer than one in 200 children actually have a problem. The sponsor of the study? The Flour Advisory Bureau! This may have been a biased report? But I do wonder whether there is an element of truth to this? And the cost of allergen control procedure implementation and training is huge and growing. There is a case for proper study and continued research as per the European Food Safety Authority so that control is implemented against proportional risk, otherwise it is just another excuse for your food prices to increase way beyond inflation, year after year, as suppliers into the food chain struggle to cope with this problem.

For more information generally about allergen management and training visit the Food Standards Agency at:

http://allergytraining.food.gov.uk/english/

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