The Food Standards Agency has an active programme in place to help consumers with food allergies and intolerances. This is an area that the Agency takes very seriously and the Board received a progress report on the Agency's activities at its open meeting last week.
This interest is shared by many others and is clearly a hot topic this week with the publication of the report by the House of Lords Science and Technology Select Committee, following on from their inquiry on allergy.
In a previous blog, I reported that Agency officials appeared before this Select Committee to give evidence about what the Agency is doing to help such consumers make safe and healthy choices about the foods they eat. The committee made many recommendations, to which we will be responding.
However, it was heartening to see that the considerable work being done by the Agency has been recognised. In particular, the committee commended the way in which the Agency has collaborated with all stakeholders to improve allergen management during food production, praised the training we are providing for local authority enforcement officers and welcomed the innovative ways in which the Agency communicates with consumers, such as our text and email alert system.
This is clearly an area where more can be done and the Agency is committed to continue its work to help this group of consumers.