Failure to label allergens in food has been found to be the main reason for recalls/consumer alerts in England and the US.
Consultants at RSSL made the discovery after analysing data published by the UK Food Standards Agency, the US Food and Drug Administration and the US Food Safety and Inspection Service.
Figures for 2008 revealed that approximately 50 per cent of recalls in both countries were caused by packaging that failed to describe one or more of the allergens present.
In total, RSSL assessed 172 recall notices/incident alerts reported by the US agency websites and 116 reported in the UK.
Karen Masters of RSSL said: 'These figures do not tell us everything about the quality and safety challenges that food manufacturers need to address, but it is interesting that allergen mislabelling is the stand-out statistic from both countries.
'It is also curious that the findings match so closely with respect to allergens because the figures are completely different for other causes.
'For example, in the USA, microbial contamination led to 33 per cent of recalls, whereas in the UK, the figure was only 11 per cent.
'In the UK, nearly 20 per cent of recalls were due to foreign bodies, whereas in the US, foreign bodies were implicated in less than 5 per cent of the recalls.' Relatively few recalls were caused by the 2008 melamine scare, suggesting that the monitoring and analysis of ingredients was largely successful in keeping melamine out of the food supply chain in the USA and UK.
Food companies often call on RSSL's Emergency Response Service (ERS) to investigate contamination incidents.
The rapid information provided by the ERS can sometimes prevent the need for recalls, either because an incident can be contained before product leaves the plant, or because the ERS investigation can demonstrate, for example, that a customer complaint is not related to the product in question.
Karen Masters added: 'The mislabelling of allergens often occurs when producers have failed to understand fully how their ingredients are processed by raw material suppliers, or simply because there has been some oversight in the production of packaging or a move to new packaging.
'Food manufacturers have to be on their guard because we live in a time when cheese is being recalled because milk hasn't been indicated on the label and packs of mixed nuts are recalled when peanuts aren't specifically mentioned.
'There are also routinely used ingredients that contain a few surprises, so manufacturers need to maintain a dialogue with suppliers to be sure they always know what is going into their products.'
