Food Safety Certification
On the 1st August 2018 the statutory authority "Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ)" launched a really valuable free resource for Food Allergens for the Australia and New Zealand region. It is called the Food Allergen Portal.
If you manage a food safety system then this resource is for you. Now is the time to check it out. It has all the information you need to know.
Food allergens are really important. From the FSANZ website: "A food allergy occurs when a person's immune system reacts to allergens that are harmless to other people. Most food allergies are caused by peanuts, tree nuts, milk, eggs, sesame seeds, fish and shellfish, soy, lupin and wheat. These must be declared on the food label, whenever they are present in food as ingredients (or as components of food additives or processing aids), however small the amounts present."
So for those of you who have a food allergy the only way to manage the allergy is to avoid the food allergen altogether.
The portal provides links to plenty of best practice food allergen resources and key messages for promotion in different sectors. The different sectors covered in the portal include:
- Manufacturers, retailers and importers
- Food service industry
- Childcare centres and schools
- Health professionals
- Government organisations
- Consumers
Each sector is broken down into what you need to know for "key messages" and background information that is titled "resources". Then each resource section has links to websites, videos, fact sheets, lists and registers.
This portal looks to be a fantastic "one-stop-shop" for what you need to know about food allergens.
Go ahead and check it out.
