The new European legislation establishes that, in the foods packed, the information on the alérgenos will have to appear in the list of ingredients

The allergic reactions to the foods are an increasing worry of the industry, consumers, scientific community and legislators, because of the greater apparition of cases of allergies; in fact, already they affect to 8% of the population adult and 5% of the childish, supposing, in Spain, a sanitary ware cost of 940 annual euros in a patient adult, figure that surpasses the 1.000 euros in the case of a boy, according to the study EuroPrevall, realizar in 25 European countries.

Answering to these worries, Aenor (Spanish Association of Normalisation and Certification), the legally responsible entity of the development of the technical norms in Spain, has launched a payment of norms that allow to detect the presence of alérgenos and of allergic ingredients in the alimentary products.

The aim is that the manufacturers of the sector agroalimentario know the qualitative and quantitative methods suitable, described in the technical norms, to analyse the presence of alérgenos in the products of feeding, reinforcing the controls. To this payment, composed by 8 norms, can access through the platform AENORmás, the new on-line application set up by the entity to facilitate the access to these documents. Between the norms, for example, find those that allow to detect alérgenos by means of immunological methods or through molecular biological methods.

This payment of norms will help to the manufacturers of the sector to fulfil with the requirements of the new European Regulation of labeling of foods that will go in in force on 14 December 2014, forcing to stand out the information on the possible alérgenos in the labels of the products. The aim of the Regulation of the Union Europe (number 1169/2011) is to pursue a high level of protection of the health of the consumers and guarantee his right to the information.

In concrete, the new European legislation establishes that, in the foods packed, the information on the alérgenos will have to appear in the list of ingredients, having to stand out by means of a composition tipográfica that differentiate it clearly of the rest of the list of ingredients (for example, through the type of letter, style or background colour). In absence of a list of ingredients has to include the quotation “contains”, followed of the substance or determinate product. The alérgenos also will have to be indicated in the foods no packagings that sell to the final consumer.

Between his advantages, AENORmás updates automatically the last version of the norm; it allows to select easily the documents that apply to the products and services of interest and has a lower cost when having of a flat price.

At present, there is more than 1.000 technical norms related with the sector agroalimentario, that contribute to improve the competitiveness of the organisations, in addition to guaranteeing his quality and alimentary hygiene.

AENORmás Allows to the companies and entities of the sector agroalimentario find the norms that help them to guarantee the quality, hygiene and hygiene in all the alimentary chain, from the production, manufacturing, manipulation and packaging, until his arrival to the final consumer through the channels of distribution or services of catering and catering.

Controls

Aenor Laboratory, the centre of analysis of feeding of the Entity, realizar analysis of substances or products that cause allergies or intolerances in a wide variety of alimentary products where investigates the presence of nuts (like the almond, hazelnut, anarcardo, pistacho, walnut and peanut), celery, fish and seafoods, gluten, egg, lactose, proteins of the milk, soya, sesame and mustard.

These analyses develops them in the physical area-chemical. Besides, it realizar microbiological and sensory analyses. In group, the main centre in the controls of quality and alimentary hygiene has realizar more than 235.000 analyses.

Aenor finds accredited by ENAC (National Entity of Accreditation) and authorised by FACE (Federation of Associations of Celiacos of Spain) for the realisation of analysis of gluten in alimentary products as well as for the certification of alimentary products without gluten under the protocol FACE.