It is estimated that approximately 2 percent of adults and about 5 percent of infants and young children in the United States suffer from food allergies, and each year roughly 30,000 individuals require emergency room treatment and 150 individuals die because of allergic reactions to food.
Eight major foods or food groups (milk, eggs, fish, crustacean shellfish, tree nuts, peanuts, wheat, and soybeans) account for 90 percent of food allergies, and at present there is no cure for food allergies. (Source: U.S. Food and Drug Administration)
Therefore, it’s obvious that the food-allergic consumer must avoid the food to which they are allergic.
One option to aid the consumer is for the manufacturer to record and document such allergen details within their products and associated ingredients, to provide this information on ingredient declarations and product labels.
CompuTec ProcessForce provides such a solution, defining allergens as part of the ingredient definition and product master details. If a product contains multiple ingredients, for example where a manufacturer purchases milk chocolate with nuts, all the allergens associated with the product’s ingredients, i.e. milk, tree nuts, and peanuts, are rolled up, ensuring no allergen is missed for declaration purposes.
