René R.W. Crevel

The growing world population, changing dietary habits, and increasing pressure on agricultural resources are drivers for the development of novel foods (including new protein sources as well as existing protein sources that are produced or used in an alternative way or in a different concentration). These changes, coupled with consumer inclination...

Sensitisation to the lipid transfer protein Pru p 3 is associated with severe allergic reactions to peach, the proteins stability being thought to play a role in its allergenicity. Lipid binding increases susceptibility of Pru p 3 to digestion and so the impact of bile salts on the in vitro gastrointestinal digestibility of Pru p 3 was investigated...

In vitro digestion tests provide data on the form in which dietary proteins maybe presented to the gut mucosal immune system, one of many strands of evidence used in allergenicity risk assessment. A 96-well plate format in vitro intestinal digestion protocol has been developed with a high and low enzyme activity test executed at pH 6.5 and 8.0. It...

The susceptibility of a novel food protein to digestion in the pepsin resistance test is widely used to inform the allergenicity risk assessment process. However, it does not model the variation in the intragastric environment found in vivo. Consequently a 96-well plate format in vitro gastric digestion protocol has been developed with a high and l...

Regional and national legislation mandates the disclosure of “priority” allergens when present as an ingredient in foods, but this does not extend to the unintended presence of allergens due to shared production facilities. This has resulted in a proliferation of precautionary allergen (“may contain”) labels (PAL) which are frequently ignored by fo...

Background Soy is globally recognized as a commonly allergenic food. The VITAL (Voluntary Incidental Trace Allergen Labeling) Scientific Expert Panel (VSEP) of the Allergen Bureau of Australia & New Zealand used data on minimal reactive doses in low-dose clinical challenges of soy-allergic individuals to elaborate and propose the first Reference Do...

Substantial progress has been made in characterising the risk associated with exposure to allergens in food. However, absence of agreement on what risk is tolerable has made it difficult to set quantitative limits to manage that risk and protect allergic consumers effectively. This paper reviews scientific progress in the area and the diverse statu...

Background: Food allergies are a significant public health issue, and the only effective management option currently available is strict avoidance of all foods containing the allergen. In view of the practical impossibility of limiting risks to zero, quantitative allergen risk assessment and management strategies are needed. Objective: We sought...

Food allergy is a major public health concern with avoidance of the trigger food(s) being central to management by the patient. Food information legislation mandates the declaration of allergenic ingredients; however, the labelling of the unintentional presence of allergens is less defined. Precautionary allergen labelling (PAL) was introduced by t...

One of the input parameters in food allergy risk assessment is the amount of a given food consumed at an eating occasion. There is no consensus on how to use food consumption data when assessing the risk from unintended allergen presence in food products. A sensitivity analysis was performed to establish the optimal food consumption estimate for a...

Quantitative risk assessment for food allergens has made considerable progress in recent years, yet acceptability of its outcomes remains stymied because of the limited extent to which it has been possible to incorporate severity as a variable. Reaction severity, particularly following accidental exposure, depends on multiple factors, related to th...

The International Life Sciences Institute (ILSI) Europe Food Allergy Task Force was founded in response to early public concerns about the growing impact of food allergies almost coincidentally with the publication of the 1995 Food and Agriculture Organization-World Health Organization Technical Consultation on Food Allergies. In line with ILSI pri...

The development and introduction of new dietary protein sources has the potential to improve food supply sustainability. Understanding the potential allergenicity of these new or modified proteins is crucial to ensure protection of public health. Exposure to new proteins may result in de novo sensitization, with or without clinical allergy, or clin...

Food allergy is recognized as an important public health issue, requiring collaboration between multiple stakeholders, including the food industry, to be effectively addressed. Management of allergens in food production aims to assure the safety of allergic consumers, but has proved particularly challenging because of the unique attributes of food...