Growing Need for Food Allergen Training

The first line of defense is awareness training for all personnel. What is an allergen? How can it enter your product? What are the different categories of allergenic response? Why is it everybody’s responsibility to prevent undeclared allergens from entering your product? What can happen if that responsibility is overlooked? A good training program addresses each of these topics. The greatest challenge, however, is convincing learners to care enough to move the lessons from the training room to the production floor.

Many people have a difficult time believing that a trace amount of milk powder or soy flour in a product can be life threatening. They think the industry has gone overboard in dealing with allergens. To be fair, discussions of allergen prevention programs were unheard of 30 years ago. Deaths from bee stings were more common than from food allergies, Epi-Pens were unheard of, and peanut butter sandwiches were allowed in classrooms everywhere. But for whatever reason—and there are several theories out there—food allergies are on the rise.

One way to raise awareness of this fact during training is to show the numbers. A peanut speck that fits on the head of a pin—1/1000th of a peanut—can kill a child. A kiss from someone who recently ate shellfish can lead to an immediate anaphylactic reaction. Show them images. Make it memorable.

A second extremely effective technique is to find a colleague who can act as advocate. The words of a co-worker whose son nearly died due to an anaphylactic reaction will hit home with your learners. Suddenly, it’s not just a list of statistics and numbers. It’s personal.

In a demonstration that we use in our training sessions, a container sprayed with Glo Gel is passed around the table, and trainees are asked to remove a sealed envelope from the container. After everyone has performed the task, the lights in the room are turned off, and a UV light is lit. They are then asked to hold their palms facing up. The eerie blue glow from the specks of powder on everyone’s hands is a graphic demonstration of just how easy it is for cross-contamination to occur. When we point out the fact that every person in the room just had a hand in spreading the allergen, the light bulbs go on in their heads.

Deep Defense: Training to the Next Level

Key to any successful allergen defense program is training those whose jobs carry a greater responsibility. The strategy here is to structure the training to the function. For example:

• Purchasing. How can you be sure that your supplier program protects the company from unwanted allergens? What is the protocol for emergency situations when a supplier cannot meet your requirements?
• Receiving. What are your responsibilities for ensuring that incoming raw materials match their specification sheets? What is the procedure to follow if you suspect possible contamination of a product?
• Sanitation. What does peanut residue look like on a food contact surface? How long must a detergent remain on a surface to denature the protein in the allergen? How do you validate your sanitation protocols?
• Processing. How is the allergen program integrated with the pre-op inspection? What is the production scheduling protocol when running allergen and non-allergen product on the same line? What traffic and people flow processes are in place to prevent cross-contamination?
• Packaging. How can you confirm that the right product is linked to the right package? How do you dispose of out-of-date labels?

Employees must understand why certain policies are in place, what the procedures are for deviations, and who is responsible for ensuring that their part of the program meets requirements. For any company that is certified to a food safety standard, either local or international, knowledge of and adherence to the documentation requirements is an added layer.