Food allergy is an issue of high and growing importance to public health, affecting consumers’ quality of life and resulting in increasing calls on health service resources. There is growing evidence that this impact is increasing at a global level as developing countries adopt a “Western” lifestyle. Therefore, minimising the risk from allergenic foods is a shared responsibility of all the stakeholders involved (e.g., patients, clinicians, food manufacturers, regulators). ILSI Europe’s Food Allergy Task Force aims to foster an international evidence-based consensus on how to assess the risk and develop the tools which will help to manage this risk. The task force and its expert groups consist of a strong network of international experts and include among their partners world-class experts and leading organisations such as the Food Allergy Research & Resource Program and the European Academy of Allergy and Clinical Immunology. Moreover, ILSI Europe plays an important role in the FP7-funded project iFAAM (Integrated Approaches to Food Allergen and Allergy Risk Management; 38 partners), coordinating effective dissemination of project results to relevant stakeholder groups to ensure impact in terms of improved quality of life for allergic consumers, improved food safety and increased competitiveness of the European food industry. The overall objective of this project, which was built to address some of the questions and data gaps that emerged from the prior EuroPrevall project, is to develop evidence-based approaches and tools, based on e-Health concepts, for management of allergens in food and to integrate knowledge derived from their application and new knowledge from intervention studies into food allergy management plans and dietary advice. Within this session, the task force activities and main outcomes will be outlined and the objectives and achievements of the iFAAM project will be presented, together with valuable insight into recent developments in risk assessment of food allergenicity.

Presentations