Food Quality & Safety
  • Home
  • About
    Us
    • Food Quality & Safety‘s Mission
    • Contact Us
    • Authors
    • Manage Subscription
    • Advertise
    • Magazine Archive
    • Copyright
    • Privacy Policy
  • On the
    Farm
  • Safety & Sanitation
    • Environmental Monitoring
    • Hygiene
    • Pest Control
    • Clean In Place
    • Allergens
    • Sanitizing
    • Training
  • Quality
    • Authenticity
    • Textures & Flavors
    • Labeling
    • Shelf Life
    • Outsourcing
    • Auditing/Validation
    • Supplier Programs
  • Testing
    • Seafood
    • Dairy
    • Hormones/Antibiotics
    • Produce
    • Ingredients
    • Beverages
    • Meat & Poultry
    • Animal Food
  • In the
    Lab
    • Lab Software
    • Pathogen Control
    • Physical Properties
    • Contaminants
    • Measurement
    • Sampling
  • Manufacturing & Distribution
    • Information Technology
    • Plant Design
    • Foreign Object Control
    • Temperature/Humidity
    • Packaging
    • Transportation
    • Tracking & Traceability
  • Food Service & Retail
    • Cleaning & Sanitizing
    • Stock Management
    • Hygiene
    • Food Preparation
    • Allergens
    • Education
    • Temperature Monitoring
  • Regulatory
    • FSMA
    • Guidelines & Regulations
    • Recalls
  • Resources
    • Whitepaper
    • Webinars
    • Video
    • Events
    • Food Library
    • Jobs
  • FQ&S
    Award
  • Search

Allergen Control: Tips on Swabbing, Testing for Major Food Allergens

January 22, 2019 • By Steve L. Taylor, PhD and Joe L. Baumert, PhD

  • Tweet
Print-Friendly Version

FDA has not mandated the use of allergen residue testing to assess the effectiveness of preventive allergen controls such as cleaning of shared equipment. However, the prudent use of such methods is very useful in determining whether allergen cleaning procedures (SSOPs) are effective and consistent. Increasingly, food companies do use swab testing of equipment surfaces for SSOP validation.

You Might Also Like
  • Scientific Findings: High-Pressure Processing to Address Allergens
  • The DNA of Recall Crisis Management
  • Protect Your Company From Food Allergens
Explore This Issue
February/March 2019
ad goes here:advert-1
ADVERTISEMENT
SCROLL TO CONTINUE

The Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) stipulates that allergens are a potential hazard. FSMA requires preventive allergen control implementation in manufacturing facilities that handle allergens. The food industry makes extensive use of shared manufacturing equipment for multiple formulations, some containing allergenic foods or ingredients and others not. The cleaning of shared equipment is a critical preventive allergen control step. While FDA has not yet released its anticipated guidance on preventive allergen control, it has already begun to conduct FSMA inspections, and some of those inspections have included assessment of preventive allergen controls. Thus, food companies using allergenic foods or ingredients should develop an Allergen Control Plan, and effective and consistent procedures for the cleaning of shared equipment.

In the U.S., the major allergens are defined as milk, eggs, fish, crustacean shellfish (shrimp, crab, lobster), peanut, soybean, tree nuts (walnut, cashew, etc.), and wheat. Ingredients derived from the major allergenic foods are also considered allergens for labeling purposes, although the comparative allergen loads (the amount of protein from the allergenic source) are highly variable from non-detectable (e.g., butter oil, cold-pressed soybean oil) to low (e.g., lactose) to high (e.g., wheat flour, soybean flour, casein, whey protein concentrate). The effectiveness of allergen SSOPs is typically focused on the major allergenic foods and ingredients derived from them, especially ingredients with high allergen loads.

Allergen Swab Testing

Allergen swabs can be effective in assessing the cleanliness of equipment surfaces. The swabs can be tested directly using certain commercial kits such as Neogen Alert kits. More commonly, swab use is coupled with lateral flow devices (LFD), also known as strip tests. Many allergen-specific commercial companies offer LFDs, including Neogen, r-Biopharm, Romer Labs, and 3M. Commercial LFDs exist to detect residues of peanut, milk, egg, soy, gluten (wheat, rye, barley), various tree nuts, crustacean shellfish, and fish.

LFDs and swab tests are highly specific and based upon antibodies that bind to protein(s) from the allergenic food. These test methods are qualitative but capable of detecting very low residual levels of allergens on equipment surfaces. These methods can also be used for detection of residues in clean-in-place (CIP) final rinse water samples. Some companies use these qualitative methods on ingredients or processed food samples, but their use for such purposes is not recommended unless careful evaluations have been done to ensure that the food matrix does not interfere with the detection of residues using LFDs.

ad goes here:advert-2
ADVERTISEMENT
SCROLL TO CONTINUE

Because food allergens are proteins, allergen-specific swabs and LFDs are the most relevant approach to determine if allergen residues remain on equipment surfaces. However, other swab approaches are available, including general protein tests (e.g., 3M Clean-Trace) and ATP tests (e.g., Charm AllerGiene). General protein tests detect protein residues from any source, allergen or not. ATP is a molecule found in all biological organisms, so ATP testing will detect soil residues on equipment surfaces from many sources. In our experience, general protein and ATP swab methods are slightly less sensitive than allergen-specific LFD methods. Due to their specificity, allergen-specific swabs with LFDs are more suitable for validation of SSOP effectiveness.

Deciding on a Testing System

Careful thought should be given to selection of the optimal commercial kit. The following are some tips on choosing the correct test to help ensure allergen SSOPs are as effective as possible.

Pages: 1 2 3 | Single Page

Filed Under: Allergens, Home Slider, Safety & Sanitation Tagged With: Allergens, Food allergens, Food Quality, Food Safety, major food allergens, TestingIssue: February/March 2019

You Might Also Like:
  • Scientific Findings: High-Pressure Processing to Address Allergens
  • The DNA of Recall Crisis Management
  • Protect Your Company From Food Allergens
  • Fishing For the Truth about Genetically Modified Ice Cream

Comments

  1. Penelope Smith says

    June 25, 2019 at 5:44 pm

    It is good to know that major food allergies in the US are milk, eggs, fish, shellfish, wheat, and nuts. It might be smart to get your children tested early if food allergies run in your family. After all, you don’t want your kids to have an allergic reaction.

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Current Issue

October/November 2019

  • Issue Articles »
  • Current Issue PDF »
  • Subscribe »
  • Follow Us:

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn

Food Quality & Safety Blog  

Managing Change as a Food Safety Professional

… [Read More]

Previous posts »

Paid Partner Content

Avoiding Overwhelming Product Recall Costs

Innovative food safety inspection systems are being developed in Germany. Learn more about the latest technologies from Bizerba and benefit from our free guidelines ensuring consistent food production safety.

  • Recall News
  • Industry News
    • Cay Thi Queentrees Food USA Recalls Poultry Products
    • Padrino Foods, LLC Recalls Beef Tamales
    • Simmons Prepared Foods, Inc. Recalls Poultry Products
    • Rastelli Bros., Inc. Recalls Meat Products
    View more »
    • Researchers Uncover Science Behind Using UV Light to Disarm Pathogens
    • In Memoriam: Daniel Y. C. Fung, PhD
    • E. coli Illness Linked to Romaine Lettuce Expands
    • Salmonella Outbreak and Ground Beef Recall Stir Transparency Debate
    • FDA Extends Deadline for Supply-Chain Approval
    View more »

Polls

How interested is your company in cannabis testing for its food/beverage products?

View Results

Loading ... Loading ...
  • Polls Archive

Whitepapers

  • Food Authenticity Testing with Agilent 6546 LC/Q-TOF and MassHunter Classifier

View More Whitepapers »

On-Demand Webinars

  • Reduce Non-Recyclable Materials
  • Why a Food Safety Culture Is Critical to Your Business

View More Webinars »

Food Quality & Safety (formerly Food Quality) is the established authority in delivering strategic and tactical approaches necessary for quality assurance, safety, and security in the food and beverage industry.

Advertise / Targeted list rental/3rd Party emails / Subscribe / Contact Us / Privacy Policy / Terms of Use

ASBPE Award Winner

Copyright © 2000–2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc., a Wiley Company. All rights reserved. ISSN 2399-1399

Wiley

This site uses cookies: Find out more.