The Food Standards Agency is seeking views on new advice for how and when to apply precautionary allergen labelling (PAL), commonly seen as “may contain” warnings on food packaging.

Under the new advice, and to ensure compliance with food law, food businesses should specify which of the 14 major allergens their PAL refers to – for example, using “may contain peanuts” or “may contain tree nuts” rather than the generic “may contain nuts”.

The FSA is recommending that PAL only be applied following a risk assessment, to ensure consumer safety and choice are not unnecessarily affected.

Views are also being sought on new guidance that PAL should not be applied for the same allergen that products are also claiming to be “free-from”. This would mean that a product labelled “dairy free”, for instance, should not be labelled with a “may contain milk” statement.

The proposed changes were supported by over 90% of respondents to the “May Contain Consultation”, which was launched in December 2021.

The updated guidance also advises businesses not to use No Gluten Containing Ingredients Statements (NGCIs), such as “this menu has been designed for a non-gluten diet”. The FSA recommends that only the phrases “gluten free” or “low gluten” be used, because NGCIs have been found to mislead consumers.

The consultation closes on Monday 22nd May and can be found here.

The BFFF would encourage members to answer this consultation directly, but, if possible, would very much welcome sight of your responses. This will assist us in ensuring our response most effectively represents the whole membership. Please send any comments to deniserion@bfff.co.uk.