Occurrence of milk and egg allergens in foodstuffs in Canada

ABSTRACT

Food allergies are life-threatening conditions that allergic individuals can avoid by consulting the food labels before consuming. Precautionary allergen labelling (or PAL), to warn against possible allergen cross-contamination, is widely used by food industries, reducing the food choices for allergic individuals. In Canada, there is limited information on the actual occurrence of allergens in products with a PAL related to the given allergen. This study attempted to fill the data gap by evaluating the occurrence of milk and egg allergens in Canadian products with PAL. A total of 1125 samples were analysed for milk and 840 for eggs, with 23% and 7% of these samples showing positive detection of ≥2.5 mg kg⁻¹ for milk and ≥0.245 mg kg⁻¹ for eggs. Chocolate products gave the largest number of positive results. Although the proportion of positive results was low, the levels detected reached 6471 mg kg⁻¹ in a chocolate sample and were indicative of possible health consequences, if PAL was ignored by allergic consumers. The occurrence data generated is destinated to be used in exposure and risk assessments, to support allergen management linked to cross-contamination, with the possible development of allergen action levels that would be used by food industries, thus improving a risk-based approach for the application of PAL.

KEYWORDS:

• milk
• egg
• allergen
• occurrence data
• precautionary allergen labelling
• processed foods

Acknowledgments

The authors want to thank the CFIA, R-Biopharm and Morinaga for their assistance and technical support. The authors also want to acknowledge summer trainees, MSc, and PhD students who helped in processing and preparing samples for this study.

Declaration of Interest

Samuel Benrejeb Godefroy’s research activities are funded by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, and Food, Government of Quebec, Canada; the Ministry of Science, Technology, and Innovation, Government of Quebec; Canada’s Innovation Foundation; the U.S. Department of Agriculture Foreign Agriculture Service; R‐Biopharm GmbH; and R‐Biopharm Canada Inc. Samuel Benrejeb Godefroy acts as an expert advisor for members of the food and beverage industry, international organizations (the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the United Nations Industrial Development Organization, and the World Bank), and international food regulators such as the China National Centre for Food Safety Risk Assessment and consumer organizations such as Food Allergy Canada. The other authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by AllerGen NCE Inc. (the Allergy, Genes and Environment Network), a member of the Networks of Centers of Excellence Canada program from 2004-2021 [17NFASt1.2, 2017].