The most basic components of food labels are: name, ingredients, factory name, factory address, contact number, product standard number, production date, shelf life, preservation methods. From the imported goods of Tesco supermarket, the reporter found a very special component on the food label – “allergy tips”.
Pasta: TESCO tomato sauce dipped pasta from the UK has “Allergy alert: Contains wheat, gluten, peanut free recipe, peanut free ingredients cannot be guaranteed. No peanuts in the factory.”
Condensed milk: TESCO condensed milk of German origin is marked with “Allergy advice: Contains milk”.
Coffee: TESCO mocha coffee 10 bags marked with “Allergy advice: Contains milk, formula does not contain peanuts, cannot guarantee that it does not contain peanuts, factory does not contain peanuts.
Cookies: TESCO selected cookies of UK origin are marked with “Allergy alert: contains milk, wheat, gluten, peanut-free formula, peanut-free ingredients cannot be guaranteed. Produced in a peanut-free factory.”
Jams: TESCO Value Assorted Jams, originating in the UK, are labeled “Allergy Alert: Sulfites.” TESCO Mint Dessert Sauce originating from the United Kingdom is labeled “Allergy Alert: Contains wheat gluten, no peanuts in the recipe, ingredients cannot be guaranteed to be peanut-free, the factory produced products containing peanuts before preparing this product for production.”
Vinegar and other condiments: TESCO red wine vinegar and white wine vinegar from the UK are labeled with “Allergy advice: Recipe: No nuts, Ingredients: Cannot guarantee nut free, Factory: No nuts ” (Allergy advice: Recipe: No nuts, Ingredients: Cannot guarantee nut free, Factory: No nuts. Factory of production does not contain nuts.)
Juice concentrates: TESCO juice concentrates of various flavors have allergy tips, for example, TESCO apple juice concentrate and orange juice concentrate of British origin are noted with “Allergy tip: contains sulfites”.
Relevant regulations: foreign food allergy tips should be highlighted
Imported foods are not only marked with allergy tips, but some are even highlighted with special colors and warning symbols. And, even if the allergens can be seen in the name and ingredients, they are still marked with allergy tips to show emphasis. Even allergens that are not visible in the ingredients are listed if they are present or likely to be present during the manufacturing process.
U.S. “Food Allergen Labeling and Consumer Protection Regulations 2004” requires that: Food manufacturers or packagers must identify allergens in food package labels containing major food allergens in one of two ways: 1. When the name of the food source containing the major allergen does not appear in the list of nutrient ingredients, the food source must be labeled in parentheses after the name of the food allergen.
For example, nutrients: fortified nutritional flours (wheat flour, malt, nicotinic acid, reduced iron, thiamin nitrate, riboflavin and folic acid), sugar, partially hydrogenated soybean oil or cottonseed oil, high fructose corn syrup, yeast (milk), eggs, flavors, natural or artificial flavorings, leavening agents (sodium acid pyrophosphate and calcium dihydrogen phosphate anhydrous), methionine (soybean) and monoglycerides and diglycerides ( 2. In the list of nutrients immediately followed by the name of the food source of the food allergen, the font must be no smaller than the font used for the nutrient. For example: contains wheat, milk and eggs.
Australia does not have the correct allergen labeling “will not tolerate” the situation, those who allow substandard labeling of food into the market will be given very severe penalties.
The UK Food Standards Agency (FSA) has issued food labeling guidelines that also specifically address allergy sufferers.
Domestic food: rarely labeled with allergy tips
The allergy tips on the packaging of imported foods are more of a “novelty” for most domestic consumers, while few domestic foods are labeled with allergy tips.
This reporter investigated a total of about 50 kinds of domestic food, except for “Master Kong” series cookies, “Kraft” cookies and Shanghai “Danone” cookies, which have similar allergy prompting language, the rest are not marked. All of them are not marked, and the “hints” of the above three are marked in the most undetectable position of the package.
Master Kong soda sandwich cookies have “This line also produces products containing eggs, peanuts, nuts and soy products.” Kraft Pacific Soda (Scallion) says “This line also processes products containing peanuts, sesame seeds, egg products and celery.” Danone Triple-Calcium Soda says “Ingredients contain wheat products and may contain traces of shellfish ingredients”.
In the survey, 95 percent of consumers who had eaten the cookies did not pay attention to the “allergy alert” on the package. But when asked whether it was necessary to label food packages with allergy tips, 90 percent answered yes.
A consumer allergic to milk told reporters that she would get nauseous and vomit when she ate something containing milk, but she could only tell whether the food contained milk by herself, “look at the color of the cookies and smell the pizza.”
Relevant provisions: the relevant domestic regulations are being investigated
China’s current implementation of the “general rules for prepackaged food labeling”, there is no mandatory requirements related to allergy tips. The National Standards Committee is responsible for the development of food labeling standards of the Ministry of Agriculture and Food, said the relevant issues on the label is being investigated.
Zhang Yongjian, a senior researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said, “With the development of the economy and the disclosure of problems, food safety management and food labeling management are being paid more and more attention to, but improvement still requires a process. There is also a sequence of safety issues. Food safety problems are divided into two main areas: food-borne illnesses and some problems caused by counterfeiting and trafficking, and not following the rules.
At present, our focus has not gone to the step of focusing on marking allergy tips, the government has not yet carried out the relevant actions, but this processed food allergy problem is also the need to go through scientific research and scientific observation before being raised, allergy tips on food labeling is certainly a direction for us to improve in the future.”