Allergens

What are Allergens?

An allergen is a substance that provokes allergic reactions in people who are sensitive to it. In a food allergy, antibodies are produced against protein parts in certain food products. Allergic reactions are more common to certain products than to others. 

Allergens  

European legislation has named fourteen substances as allergens, namely: gluten (wheat, rye, barley, oats, spelt, khorasan wheat), shellfish, egg, fish, peanut, soy, milk (including lactose), nuts (8 types), celery, mustard, sesame, sulphite, lupine and molluscs.

Allergen icons as pictogramAlso use allergen icons?

  1. Gluten-containing grains (wheat, rye, barley, oats, spelt, khorasan wheat/kamut)
  2. Crusteaceans
  3. Eggs
  4. Fish
  5. Peanut
  6. Soybean
  7. Milk (including lactose)
  8. Nuts (almonds, hazelnuts, walnuts, cashews, pecans, brazil nuts, pistachios, and macadamia nuts)
  9. Celery
  10. Mustard
  11. Sesame seed
  12. Sulfur dioxide and sulfite at concentrations of more than 10 mg SO2 per kilo or litre.
  13. Lupine 
  14. Molluscs

Some substances made from the above 14 allergenic ingredients do not need to be stated. This is included in a legal list of exceptions.

Download
Allergen poster 

Allergen poster icons

Poster developed by Unilever and Allergenen Consultancy

LeDa Allergen List (former ALBA)

The LeDa list was a list of 24 substances that can cause food allergies or hypersensitivity. This allergen list included the fourteen substances from European legislation, but also ten additional substances. These were lactose, cocoa, glutamate, chicken meat, beef, pork, coriander, corn, legumes and carrot. The list is managed by the Nutrition Center. In the summer of 2017 has stopped by requesting these 10 non-statutory allergens in the Food Database (LeDa). This means that the allergen information in the LeDa database is limited to the legal allergens.  

ALBA was the predecessor of LeDa and merged into LeDa in 2009. In the early years of ALBA, before European allergen legislation existed, 38 substances were on this list. In 1998 the demand for sucrose, fructose, sorbic acid and BHA/BHT was stopped. The list was later shortened even further and reduced to 29 substances. Substances such as azo dyes, cinnamon, benzoic acid, yeast, umbelliferae and vanillin have been deleted. These substances have been removed from the list due to insufficient scientific substantiation. With the transition to LeDa, the interpretation of some groups of allergens has also been adjusted to the legal framework, such as milk, nuts and shellfish. The interpretations of the legal allergens can also be found in an explanatory document which can be downloaded free of charge from the website of the Nutrition Center.

New allergen list and template

Because the LeDa list is now equal to the legal list of allergens, the LeDa list has been dropped as a basis for allergen information. Nevertheless, there is a need for guidance when drawing up product specifications, technical data sheets and questionnaires. In practice, it appears that not only the LeDa list is still used as a template, but that many of the substances that were once on the ALBA list are still requested within the chain. This creates an unnecessary administrative burden. 

Allergenen Consultancy has a new and free template developed with the aim of:

  1. to standardize and exchange allergen information in the chain
  2. a quantitative risk assessment of cross-contamination with allergens (according to VITAL) possible