Tabulación, interpretación y análisis de la encuesta

The management of food allergens depends on elements that mould the effectiveness of any intervention in an effort to produce safe food for the sensitive individuals. Throughout the literature review the supply chain operators and the food service working staff have been identified as the first guardians of the food and any information that is related to its further processing (Will & Guenther, 2007; FAAN, 2010). The supplier and the food preparation staff represent the first two important elements which affect the safety of food and in the case of this study the knowledge of food allergens. Other elements that emanate from these two elements are the practices and the design including space (FoodDrinkEurope, 2013) that effects the production of safe food. Within this study the focus is on food allergens and therefore only the elements which effect the safe production of food free from allergens are considered. These critical elements, which have been identified as the main contributors towards the safe production of food free from allergens and the transfer of accurate ingredient information as part of the management of the food allergens, are addressed using the following designed interventions within the multi- faceted toolkit;

Table 2.2: Critical Elements & Interventions applied in Multi-Faceted Toolkit

Critical Elements Intervention

People The staff involved in the

preparation of food should understand the implication and consequences of the presence of food allergens have on food allergic consumers such as that they take appropriate preventative measures.

Training session

Suppliers The required knowledge of

suppliers understanding and application of food allergen management.

Food Allergen Management policy

Training session Raw Material Handling Identifying the incoming raw

materials and ingredients. Establish their allergen status and the possible cross

contamination involved. Appropriate storage and segregation as needed.

Food Allergen Management policy

Training session

Equipment and Kitchen

Design The appropriate use of equipment to perform the task at hand without

contaminating the food which will come into contact with the same equipment.

Food Allergen Management policy

Training session

Production Process The understanding of the

process that food production requires to prepare food that would be safe for allergenic consumers.

Food Allergen Management policy

Training session/lectures

Consumer Information The ability to inform the

consumer of the accurate ingredient information that is required to make educated choices.

Food Allergen Management policy

Training session Product Development

and Changes Ensuring that accurate ingredient information is available to produce new products or improve others.

Food Allergen Management policy

Training session

Simplified recipe building for tracing allergens

Documentation Record keeping will assist in

the delivery of efficient and accurate allergen

management within the operations food safety program.

Food Allergen Management policy

Ingredient matrix to formulate recipe and identify allergens

As noted in Table 2.2 there are multiple elements that affect the management and delivery of safe food to allergy sufferers within the loose food industry; therefore the multi-facet toolkit had a sequence of steps that were delivered and implemented within the selected businesses. The multi-facet toolkit included;

A. Setting up Food Allergen Management policy

B. Training sessions delivered to staff of the selected businesses;

C. Acknowledge the Allergens within the EU with infographics (Poster)

D. Simplified recipe building for tracing allergens

E. Ingredient matrix to formulate recipe and identify allergens easily.

A. Food Allergen Management Policy

As with all types of management procedures it is important that communications between all parties (external and internal) are well established. This will ensure that any communication gaps will be bridged and no operational islands are created (Kerzner, 2003). Within food preparation, the supply chain and process complexity needs to be harnessed into a management policy that would control critical elements that must be considered when assessing allergen risks (FoodDrinkEurope, 2013). This should be an integral part of the existing food safety management system (FoodDrinkEurope, 2013) based upon the principles of HACCP. It would be therefore appropriate to ensure that the food safety system is robust enough to absorb the management of allergens rather than treat this through a parallel system. Building a policy needs to take into considerations all the operational aspects of

the food service business and the limitations. With this information at hand the policy should be achievable and functional thus ensuring that all the persons involved would feel that they could embrace the policy and implement its principles.

B. Training Sessions

The training sessions to all operatives within the food service businesses focused on the main concept of allergen management and explained with easy understandable language (FDA, 2005), what consequences the offending foods have on food allergic consumer and the expectations food allergy sufferers have of the food service industry. The scope of the training sessions was to generate general food allergen awareness of the nature and possible consequence of their unintended or undeclared presence in the products (FoodDrinkEurope, 2013) prepared. The training programme was designed on points that were accentuated in the literature review. The importance of further training is evident (FDA, 2005) and should cover foundation areas of allergen management through a series of well-planned sessions directly targeting the following (Appendix 10);

• Consequence to consumption of allergens • Segregation/ Alternative Ingredients • Sanitation

• Rework

• Tracing rework

• Internal Labeling (QR Codes) • Cross Contamination

• The use of equipment • Purchasing

• Communication

• Application of HACCP principles.

C. Acknowledge the Allergens within the EU with Infographics

Through studies it has been noted that lack of knowledge has been a prime barrier for food business operations to prepare and offer for sale allergy free food (Bailey et al, 2014). An important step to help ease this deficiency was to indicate the most common allergens within the EU. This assists working staff to recognize which ingredients were the allergens of concern (FSA, 2006) in order to be able to manage them better in avoiding cross- contamination. At the onset of the training sessions the staff were asked to name the food allergens they knew about by means of the questionnaire. This part of the study helped measure the current situation within the business regarding staff knowledge of food allergies.

Infographics (communication graphics) are visual representations of data and information that convey the story through illustrations. In healthcare protection, infographics are established methods to improve knowledge and are promoted as the preferred method to communicate successfully with the target audience (CDC, 2016). A poster (infographic) of the most common allergens within the EU was designed to serve the same purpose as an SOP where staff could, through visual reference, determine whether the ingredients within their products falls into one of the categories which could cause harm to sensitive individuals (Appendix 11). Each allergen was named in the local language and other languages which the management would identify as

common amongst the working staff. Within this study four languages were chosen namely English, Maltese, Italian and German. This poster assisted the staff to familiarize themselves to the allergens on regular basis as it was displayed in the preparation areas (Figure 2.5). The poster had sections that showed a picture of the allergenic food followed by the names in the four languages. The next tabulation gave examples of typical ingredient source and the last column listed the example of derived products and compound ingredients containing allergens.

Figure 2.5: The Allergen Infographic in Dominant Spaces in Two Kitchens

D. Simplified Recipe Building for Tracing Allergens

When using a SOP system to write recipes, it is required to have in place a system that would record the suppliers of the ingredients that are used for that dish. This is in view that different suppliers

might have a different recipe of the same generic product as for example mayonnaise and it might, therefore, contain different allergens from one supplier to another. If one would operate a computer program similar to for example Calcmenu (eg- software.com), this would be one of the steps required in order to formulate a recipe; however small operations, besides the knowledge, time and cost required to operate such systems, could find it impractical as volumes might not justify the effort. It would therefore be more practical to generate a series of matrices that would allow SMEs to still be accurate in giving ingredients information to whoever requires further details.

E. Ingredients Matrix to Formulate Recipe and Identify Allergens Easier

Identifying the allergens within the food products has a huge influence in the proper formulation of a safe recipe. Once a complex product (containing multiple ingredients) is purchased, the person responsible would scrutinize the product by reading through the information attached to the product, normally a label, and determine if it contains any allergens. This is mainly for compound mixtures or complex processed/semi processed food products, for example bouillons. There are also unexpected allergens in food products for example fish in Worcestershire sauce or egg albumin in wines. These products are either used as taste enhancers or as in the case of wine as a clarifying agent. Other ingredients might not need to be scrutinized if these are still in their natural state. The ingredient matrix would start to be generated and would hold the most important information (i.e. name of supplier, bar code, brand, name of product, name of

allergen and status) for future reference (Figure 2.6). This matrix will be used whenever a recipe is to be built (engineered) and the presence of an allergen would be recorded in the recipe’s SOP. The recipe would also be written on a matrix, which would clearly

indicate the allergen presence (Figure 2.7) (Figure 2.8). Once this is done, a Quick Response Code (QR Code) would be

generated through freely available QR code generator, which is linked to all the data necessary to deliver accurate information to the clients (Figure 2.9). The QR code takes the user to a web interface where the unique code is passed to a backend system which retrieves the entire ingredient list that make up the recipe. The codes would be printed next to the item on the menu where clients can scan, using their smart phone and retrieve the data from the cloud without the need of assistance (Figure 2.10).

Figure 2.7: Recipe Matrix Expanded

Figure 2.8: Recipe Matrix Collapsed

Figure 2.9: Barcode with Encoded Data to Be Printed Next To Menu Item

Figure 2.10: Decoded Data Retrieved onto Smartphone

As previously noted, Coutts and Fielder (2009) argued that food allergy sufferers are less confident to eat food prepared by others, while Boye and Godefroy (2010) reported that the accurate ingredient information communicated to the consumer is not as easy as it seems. The use of QR

code as part of the multi-faceted toolkit to deliver the accurate ingredient information has the potential of delivering accurately all the ingredient information used in the selected dish. This novel approach of delivering the ingredient information will also address the findings reported Ajala et al (2010), Madsen et al (2010) and Hall (2004) which have shown that the service staff have limited knowledge of the ingredients, thus the information would be available primarily to the consumer and also the working staff. The information received by the consumer would have surpassed the minimum legal obligation as set in the new EU 1169/2011 regulation which is based around the fourteen allergens. This system will deliver the list of all ingredients and thus if someone is sensitive to any other ingredient outside the EU recommended list, would be able to identify the presence of that ingredient.