Food Allergen Detection Methods and the Challenge to Protect Food-Allergic Consumers

The detection of allergenic ingredients in food products has received an increased attention of the food industry, legislative and regulative agencies over recent years. This has resulted in an improvement of measures aimed at the protection of food allergic consumers. Both the controlled production of food products as well as control activities executed by for instance food inspection agencies rely on the availability of methods capable of detecting traces of allergenic ingredients. The development of such methods faces a multitude of analytical challenges. Here those challenges are being identified and discussed. Furthermore, future developments and trends in analytical methodology as applied for the detection of food allergens are reported.JRC.D.8-Food safety and qualit