Allergen testing and risk management within food manufacturing

Supported by:

28 September 2016

About this webinar

Allergens are a key topic, which affect food and beverage manufacturing all the way to the consumer. A food recall is serious enough, but if allergens are involved it makes it that bit more severe. For this and many other reasons, managing allergens remains a substantial task that is of utmost importance to ensure consumer trust is maintained.

In this webinar, we get comments from many experts of the industry.

Our moderator for this webinar was Bert Pöpping, Chief Scientific Officer – Corporate Food Chemistry and Molecular Biology at Mérieux NutriSciences.

Topics covered include: What an allergic reaction is and its impact on the food allergenic consumer. Current Reliability of Allergen testing – featuring the pros and cons of current technologies, future development and potential new novel technologies; Current legislation and its limitations – The role of food allergen risk assessment/management in the food industry.

Speakers include: Clare Mills, Programme Leader at Institute of Food Research; Rene Crevel, Science Leader – Allergy & Immunology at Unilever; Ashley Sage, Senior Manager – Applied Markets Development EMEAI at SCIEX; and Adrian Rogers, Senior Research Scientist at Romer Labs UK.

Keynote Speakers

Clare Mills
Professor of Molecular Allergology
University of Manchester

In her presentation, Clare Mills explains more about what an allergic reaction is and the impact of food allergies on quality of life for food allergic consumers. She also explains the protein molecules that cause food allergies and the impact of the food matrix and processing on their structure and activity, and the role of analysis in food allergen risk assessment/management – the EU-funded iFAAM project allergen management tool box.

Rene Crevel 
Science Leader – Allergy & Immunology
Unilever

Rene Crevel discusses precautionary allergen labelling (PAL), and look into why it is not working and what is needed to restore its value. He also talks about the current legal/regulatory framework (principally the FIC) and whether we can use this to help PAL function better.

Ashley Sage 
Senior Manager – Applied Markets Development EMEAI
SCIEX

In his section, Ashley Sage introduces us to LC-MS/MS and the associated benefits of such technology, as well as providing a discussion on workflows for peptide detection and analysis. He also covers aspects of sample preparation, with examples of typical results with an indication of level of reproducibility.

Adrian Rogers 
Senior Research Scientist
Romer Labs UK

Adrian Rogers gives a brief overview of allergen technologies, such as an allergen ELISA and an allergen Lateral Flow Device, and how they work. He goes into the pros and cons of immunoassay technology for allergen detection with a focus on food industry requirements; How allergen detection method developers can improve their relationship with the food industry; and provide an update on a joint University of Manchester, Romer Labs KTP project looking at developing the next generation of Soy ELISA with a particular focus on trying to meet the industry’s needs/requirements right at the start of the development phase of a new ELISA kit.

This webinar is supported by SCIEX & Romer Labs

SCIEX’s global leadership and world-class service and support in the capillary electrophoresis and liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry industry have made it a trusted partner to thousands of the scientists and lab analysts worldwide who are focused on basic research, drug discovery and development, food and environmental testing, forensics and clinical research. Find out more: www.sciex.com

Romer Labs offers a broad range of innovative diagnostic solutions covering mycotoxins, food pathogens, food allergens, gluten, GMO, veterinary drug residues, and other food contaminants. They operate 4 accredited, full-service laboratories in Austria, UK, US and Singapore. Using cutting-edge technology in the fields of chromatography and immunological analysis, their labs offer services for the analysis of mycotoxins, food allergens, meat speciation, VDR and GMO. Find out more: www.romerlabs.com