On October 01,2020, Food Standard Agency (FSA) of theUnited Kingdom has introduced "Food labelling requirements for prepacked food for direct sale".
The new requirement on allergen labelling is to ramp up all the food business to comply with the proposed changes set by FSA. The scope of labelling instructions is outlined in the technical guidance document and highlights the below:
- To protect hypersensitive consumers from food allergy or intolerance.
- To meet the packaging criteria of prepacked direct sale (PPDS).
- 14 ingredients have been identified as potent allergens and must be declared in bold/italic
- Allergens includes celery, cereals containing gluten (such as barley and oats), crustaceans (such as prawns, crabs and lobsters), eggs, fish, lupin, milk, molluscs (such as mussels and oysters), mustard, peanuts, sesame, soybeans, sulphur dioxide and sulphites (<10ppm) and tree nuts (such as almonds, hazelnuts, walnuts, brazil nuts, cashews, pecans, pistachios and macadamia nuts).
- Precautionary labelling requirements with phrase “may contain” or “not suitable for” is acceptable.
The new rule on allergen labelling for PPDS will be effective from 01 October 2021 in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Guidance document is available on the FSA website and on our Food News Monitoring System!
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