Allergen testing on dietary supplements
Hello! I am a Sanitation manager in a small, organic food packaging facility. We are a small company and we do not cook, process or manufacture any food products. We are basically a co-packer. We receive bulk product and we package and label it with labels that also come from customers. My question is, since i don't actually deal with "ingredients" per say, do i need to test for all allergens listed on the label if there are more than one? For example, we are running a probiotic that contains both gluten and coconut oil. Even though coconut oil is not a big 8 allergen, it can still be considered an allergen and I do coconut tests quite a lot here. And if i do test for both allergens, should i test the same spots for both allergens? I have been at this job for about 2 years, but I am still learning and this topic in particular is really confusing to me. Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Coconut is a tree nut
Tree nuts are a category on the big 8.
Hello! I am a Sanitation manager in a small, organic food packaging facility. We are a small company and we do not cook, process or manufacture any food products. We are basically a co-packer. We receive bulk product and we package and label it with labels that also come from customers. My question is, since i don't actually deal with "ingredients" per say, do i need to test for all allergens listed on the label if there are more than one? For example, we are running a probiotic that contains both gluten and coconut oil. Even though coconut oil is not a big 8 allergen, it can still be considered an allergen and I do coconut tests quite a lot here. And if i do test for both allergens, should i test the same spots for both allergens? I have been at this job for about 2 years, but I am still learning and this topic in particular is really confusing to me. Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Yes - you would test for all allergens on the label. It would be helpful for you to test both allergens on the spots you swab. Once you finish the probiotic production run, you need to ensure that your next product to be run on the same equipment will not have carryover allergens from this product.
You do actually deal with ingredients as a co-packer (and sounds like a repack operation to me), because those ingredients from the bulk products are running through your process equipment.
Packisback27,
As a sanitation manager it is your responsibility (working with your Food Safety director) to ensure that the sanitation practices mitigate the risks associated with allergens, microbes etc... in your operation areas. How you go about proving that those sanitation practices are effective at removing or reducing allergens is entirely up to you, however testing for allergens is a very good practice. Where you are running multiple allergens I would recommend testing for each allergen or for allergens in general. Because coconut is considered a tree nut, it falls into the big 8 category and should definitely be treated as such. The frequency you are testing for allergens, and the procedure to reduce the allergen presence is your "sauce", make it how you want it, just be sure you can show that your are doing it and that it is effective at doing what you say it does.
"The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recognizes coconut as a tree nut, and thus an allergen that must be declared. ... Despite this, coconut remains on the list, so food facilities labeling products containing coconut must list it in the ingredients appropriately.Jul 12, 2019 "