It is important to manage allergens effectively in your food business to ensure food is safe for customers with food allergies.

This involves including having good food preparation and hygiene practices in place to avoid cross-contamination in your kitchen.

Potential sources of allergen cross-contamination during food processing and preparation which should be considered as part of a thorough risk assessment include:

· processing aids
· raw material handling
· storage
· transport
· people
· cleaning
· shared equipment
· re-work
· air particles in preparation area
· supply chain
· packaging

You can minimise the risk of allergen cross-contamination through a number of ways.

Having an allergen notification system with suppliers and maintaining well labelled and segregated ingredient storage will support effective management of allergenic ingredients.

Exercising good personal hygiene and developing premises cleaning procedures, with dedicated areas and utensils, are all steps which will reduce the likelihood of allergen cross-contact.

Cleaning that is effective in reducing the risks of allergen cross-contamination should be used where appropriate.

Cleaning requires careful management. This could include using dedicated, clean, or new sponges, cloths, and freshly prepared cleaning solutions. This is preferable to reusing cleaning solutions which have been used in areas where foods with allergens have been prepared.

Where adequate cleaning is not possible, the risk of cross-contact should be assessed. Precautionary allergen labelling should be used when necessary.

Your business can minimise risk of allergen cross-contamination through cleaning processes, by:
· establishing an appropriate cleaning regime
· focusing on hard to clean areas
· where appropriate, consider dismantling equipment to remove allergen residues from powders, pastes, and seeds
· cleaning thoroughly to remove microbiological hazards as well as allergens
· validating cleaning regimes with inspections to ensure there is no visible food, debris, or other residues
· monitoring that cleaning is done effectively by staff
· keeping records of cleaning
· making pest control providers aware of concerns around the allergen status of the site so they do not introduce additional allergens through their products

You can avoid allergen cross-contamination by dedicating storage and production areas to specific allergenic products.


However, food premises and product ranges vary significantly. Dedicated areas will not always be a feasible option, particularly in small and micro businesses.

Where space is limited, there are a number of ways of minimising risk of allergen cross-contact.

These include:

· storing allergenic ingredients in different parts of the food preparation area
· storing allergenic ingredients below, rather than above non-allergenic ingredients, for example bread rolls with sesame seeds kept separate from ones without. If ingredients contain multiple allergens, consider how to store these appropriately
· using dedicated equipment and utensils when preparing allergenic ingredients. Colour coding can be helpful
· minimising unnecessary movement of foodstuffs
· being aware of decanting ingredients and air currents in the premises where this is practical, to avoid movement of lightweight ingredient

Scheduling the food you are preparing is another method to reduce the risk of allergen cross-contamination.

This can be done by preparing food in order of least allergenic to most allergenic. For example, gluten free products could be produced at the start of the day, followed by gluten containing products.

Measures still need to be taken in food preparation because allergen cross-contact primarily occurs through:

· food to food contact - by different foods touching or one food dripping onto another food

· food to hand to food contact - through food preparation staff using ingredients from multiple containers holding different allergens, without washing hands in between. This can also occur when assembling sandwiches, or putting toppings on food

· food to equipment/utensils/surface to food contact - sharing of utensils without thoroughly washing and drying, or using the same cutting board for multiple ingredients

· food cooked in the same liquid - through shared fryers for cooking food containing different allergen content

The different allergen cross-contamination risks should be considered as part of a risk assessment.

The main purpose of an allergen risk assessment is to understand the likelihood of unintentional allergen cross-contamination across the supply chain, from raw materials to your finished product.

Undertaking a risk analysis will allow your business to identify the risk of allergen cross-contact, decide whether precautionary allergen labelling is appropriate, and agree next steps.

Risk analysis is made up of 4 stages:

1. Risk assessment – What is the risk?
2. Risk management – Can the risk be managed? What actions could reduce the risk?
3. Risk communication – How should the risk be communicated?
4. Risk review – Has the risk changed? How frequently will you review your system?