Advances in Detection and Measurement Technologies that Support Validation and Verification of Allergen Controls

The great relevance of the allergen topic motivates many food analysts to develop sensitive and reliable detection and determination methods. Until today a variety of different analytical approaches are being published. Driven by the effort of the food industry to address risk management for food allergens and the consequent need for allergen tests, some of these techniques are commercially available as so called “kits” and widely used for routine testing (mainly ELISA and PCR). During the recent years this established methods were improved with some success in terms of their analytical properties (sensitivity, accuracy and precision). Since the diversity of food products and raw material being tested is constantly increasing, extended matrix validations of the applied method become more and more essential. Therefore the question what might be the “best analytical strategy” is quite context depending. What is the given sample matrix? What is the possible contaminating product? Which test is the most robust in terms of the applied production conditions (heat, pressure, acidity etc.)? Approaches like LC-MS/MS bypass some of the weak points of the established methods by design but also here the development of a robust routine method is difficult and tedious. On the other hand, a consequent risk assessment and transparency along the complete production can make all this choices much easier and improve the value of allergen tests significantly. Given that even complex issues can be resolved with astonishing imperfect techniques.