Precautionary allergen labelling (PAL) on pre-packaged food is a critical tool used by the food industry to communicate potential risks of unintended allergen presence (UAP) for people with food allergies. The World Allergy Organization Consensus on the Use of PAL (ACT-UP!) Working Group has published a review of the latest data on PAL, revealing that while approximately 100 countries have legislation on declaring allergenic ingredients, only a few regulate UAP.
The increasing but inconsistent use of PAL was highlighted by the World Allergy Organization in 2014, resulting in calls for a regulated, international framework. In response, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) convened an expert consultation in 2019 to address this issue, with the outputs now under consideration by the Codex Committee on Food Labelling (CCFL).
The latest review sets out the labelling requirements of each country and describes the mixed success of attempts around the world to rationalize PAL. It also identifies specific areas of uncertainty which might hinder international agreement on a regulated PAL framework. For example, consideration is given to particulate contamination which has non-uniform distribution in the final food product. This poses significant difficulties with risk assessment, and results in the common scenario where despite bearing a PAL, most products do not have UAP because the risk and distribution of particulate contamination is sporadic.
As the CCFL considers the FAO/WHO Expert Consultation results from 2020-2023, hope remains for developing effective, homogeneous global legislation.
Reference: Turner, P. et al. 2024. Time to ACT-UP: Update on precautionary allergen labelling (PAL). World Allergy Organization Journal, Vol 17 (10). DOI: Open Access.
