The FDA examined 85 companies and found a quarter of them produced items with raw ingredients, such as nuts, which were omitted from the food labels. Furthermore, the investigation revealed only slightly more than half of the manufacturers checked their products to ensure all ingredients were accurately listed.

  • Shortly thereafter, the National Food Processors Assoc. released an industry "Code of Practice" for managing food allergens, calling for NFPA members to:

  • Label, in terms consumers can understand, major food allergens.

  • Use good manufacturing practices (GMPs) and allergen-control strategies to minimize potential cross contact of major food allergens.

  • If GMPs or other allergen-control strategies are unreliable, ingredient declarations or supplementary information would be appropriate.

  • Continue to develop processing, analytical and operational strategies to reduce the risk to allergic consumers of ingesting food allergens.