Many countries require food products containing major allergens to declare so on the product’s packaging. However, regulations dictating which allergens must be disclosed, and how, vary by country or region. For example, in the U.S. and Canada, the specific breed of fish or shellfish must be declared when present.
This blog will cover how to build, view, and edit your allergen statements. We will also cover how to add new allergens to the database.
Genesis R&D comes pre-populated with the major allergen food groups for the U.S., Canada, Mexico, and European Union. Genesis R&D allows you to add your own allergens to the database so that you can be fully compliant with the specific declaration requirements for each country. Check out our cheat sheet, Allergen Labeling by Country, to learn more about what additional allergens you may need to add to the database.
Because the program errs on the side of caution, all Ingredients in the ESHA database, as well as all user-added Ingredients, will initially have all the default database allergens selected.
Below is a list of all default program allergens for all label modules available in Genesis R&D:
Note: if this list looks different than yours, check your program preferences. To do so, navigate to My Preferences > Label > Allergens. Then check which country allergens you wish to see, or un-check to hide.
You will see that user-added allergens appear in blue. Genesis R&D will automatically add (May Contain) next to allergens that have been designated as “May Contain.” However, (May Contain) will not appear in the contains statement.
Note: When you open an ESHA item or create an ingredient for the first time, your list of allergens will look something like this, with all of the default allergens checked, and user-added allergens un-checked:
While you CAN modify allergens at the Recipe level, this practice is NOT recommended. As a best practice, Allergens should be managed at the Ingredient level. Changes made to Ingredients at the Recipe level will SAVE and effect all Recipes that use that Ingredient.
Selected allergens will appear in the Allergen Statement.
If you checked Almonds (May Contain) or any user-added ingredients, the program will automatically generate an Additional Allergen (“May contain”) statement:
Advisory statements are not required. If using an advisory statement, “May Contain” is not required wording. You could also use something like “This product was processed on machinery used to process…” or “May contain traces of…” or whatever makes sense for your product. You can change the wording by clicking Edit and manually typing in new text.