We will focus on the second point here because Dr. Taylor had a lot to say about it. He offered this statistic which really caught our attention: 50% of packaged cookies say “contains peanuts” or “may contain peanuts” while only 10% actually contain any trace amount of peanuts. This statistic is mind blowing.
This leads to food allergic consumers to exhibit different types of behavior. Some cautious food allergic people won’t eat these cookies, and they’ll be missing out on products that are safe for them. Some risk-takers will eat these cookies, and sooner or later they’ll suffer from a reaction to a cookie that does contain peanuts. Clearly, it’s a lose-lose situation.
Dr. Taylor also addressed another interesting topic of concern to manufacturers. Labels often feature the phrase “made in same facility as…” when no real risk exists because the different areas of the facility containing the allergen are properly separated.
This occurred in a large Australian manufacturing facility in 2007. Most, if not every, product exiting the facility contained the “made in same facility as…” allergen warning label when the majority of the facility’s products didn’t contain trace amounts of the allergen.
However, cross-contamination does occur. This happens when a safe food comes in contact with an undesired allergen. Without a doubt, the issue of cross-contamination warrants more than just a quick explanation. There are quite a few steps you must consider in your plant in order to ensure that a recall isn’t looming in the near future- please remember to address the following: