Guidance on identifying and assessing allergen cross contact in agricultural commodities, with supplier questions, case studies, and the Raw Material Risk Matrix Questionnaire to guide sampling and testing.
Published: August 2022
Format: PDF, 28 pages
Cost: Free to download
About this guide
Allergens can end up in raw materials through shared fields, crop rotation, and shared harvesting, storage and transport equipment. This guide helps growers, ingredient suppliers and food businesses identify which commodities are at risk and what to ask their suppliers. It includes real-world case studies and the Raw Material Risk Matrix Questionnaire, which gives a material a low, medium or high risk rating that determines how many samples to collect for allergen testing.
Who it’s for
- Growers and primary producers
- Food ingredient manufacturers, importers and suppliers, both local and imported
- Food business operators of packaged food for bulk sale, including business to business
- Food business operators of packaged retail ready foods
- Food business operators in food service and hospitality
- Importers of packaged foods
What’s inside
| Section | What it covers |
|---|---|
| 1. Introduction | About the guide and its scope: who it applies to and how it supports the allergen risk review process. |
| 2. Agricultural co-mingling | How different crops mix through shared fields, crop rotation, and shared harvesting, transport and storage. Table 1 gives general questions for all agricultural materials, and Table 2 gives commodity-specific questions with examples from industry experience. Tables 3 and 4 set out the situations that contribute to co-mingling and the practices used to mitigate it. |
| 3. Case studies | Three real examples: crop rotation and peanut in garlic powder, a complex supply chain and peanut in cashew ingredients, and gluten in maize linked to storage and silo dust. |
| 4. Risk rating, sampling and testing | The Raw Material Risk Matrix Questionnaire and its risk rating outcome, followed by sample collection, volume and frequency, allergen analysis recommendations, the intended use of analytical results, and ongoing monitoring. |
| 5. Appendices | Appendix 1: sampling rationale. Appendix 2: example sampling devices. |
| 6. Endnotes | References. |