For the Food Industry

Q. How do warn consumers about an allergy alert?
A. Call us on 020 8878 2514

Q. What is alert4allergy?
A. alert4allergy is a service for food retailers and manufacturers and allows them to contact quickly, and cost-effectively consumers at risk of severe allergic reaction.

Q. What is the prevalence of allergy?
A. According to government figures, more than a million people in the UK are affected by severe food allergy - and for example there are 250,000 children with peanut allergy according to the Commons Select Committee on Health.

Q. Who is at risk?
A. As a food manufacturer or retailer, you must assume that everyone with food allergy is at risk of a severe reaction. There are many cases of severe, even fatal allergic reactions experienced by people who have only had mild reactions in the past.

Q. What could go wrong?
A. In 2005 there were more than 30 food alerts or product recalls relating to allergens - affecting major supermarkets and brands as well as smaller suppliers. Incidents included contamination in raw ingredients (nuts in the sunflower seeds), food in the wrong packaging (prawn spring rolls labelled as duck spring rolls), recipe changes not reflected in the packaging, mistakes in manufacturing (nuts in the museli), mistakes in labelling or packaging (whey powder confused with lactose) , cross contamination in the factory (plain chocolate contaminated with milk)

Q. Why do I need to be concerned?
A.. Even if your internal systems are very good, mistakes can and do happen with you or your suppliers. If you discover a manufacturing or packaging issue of relevance to consumers with allergies - or one of your suppliers does - then you need to be able to warn consumers quickly and efficiently. Every company has an obligation to protect its customers and to avoid preventable distress, serious illness or even death. Failure risks civil litigation and even criminal prosecution.

Q. How do I get more information?
A. Call Jonathan Shaw on 020 8878 2514

Q. How alert4allergy fit with the Anaphylaxis Campaign and the other patient organisations?
A. At present, alert4allergy.org is the only alert service that is all of the following: not restricted only to paying members, not reliant on the post (too slow) and not reliant on email (too unreliable - spam filters etc). We have good relations with all the major patient organisations and hope to persuade them to work in partnership with us.

Q. Can I publish allergy alerts on my own website.
A. Yes, click here for more information