Yesterday, the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) released a compliance guideline addressing steps meat and poultry establishments can take to control and prevent the introduction of undeclared allergens into food products. The guidance, Allergens and Ingredients of Public Health Concern: Identification, Prevention and Control, and Declaration through Labeling (the Guidelines), identifies key steps FSIS recommends establishments take to identify potential sources of foodborne allergens, prevent and control the introduction of allergens into foods, and ensure all allergens are declared on food labels. Guidelines are technically nonbinding recommendations, but FSIS considers food adulterated and misbranded if its label fails to declare any of the “Big Eight” allergens present in the food. FSIS “recommends that establishments consider incorporating the practices set out in [the Guidelines] in their HACCP plan or Sanitation SOPs or other prerequisite programs.”
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