Food allergen detection methods and the challenge to protect food-allergic consumers.
The detection of allergenic ingredients in food products has received increased attention from the food industry and legislative and regulatory agencies over recent years. This has resulted in the improvement of measures aimed at the protection of food-allergic consumers. The controlled production of food products and control activities executed by food inspection agencies rely on the availability of methods capable of detecting traces of allergenic ingredients. The development of such methods faces a multitude of analytical challenges. Those challenges will be identified and discussed in this review. Furthermore, future developments and trends in analytical methodology as applied to the detection of food allergens are reported.
van Hengel
Arjon J
AJ
European Commission, Directorate General Joint Research Centre, Institute for Reference Materials and Measurements, Retieseweg 111, 2440 Geel, Belgium. adrianus.van-hengel@ec.europa.eu
D000485:Allergens / Q000032:analysis*; D000818:Animals; D003257:Consumer Product Safety; D005504:Food Analysis / Q000379:methods*; D005511:Food Handling; D006801:Humans; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity
D000485:Allergens