A food business must understand its own processes and products, and therefore must be able to identify, manage and communicate any food allergen risk to its staff and customers who may have allergies and/or intolerances to specific foods. Once a food allergen is identified as either a raw ingredient, contained within a raw ingredient or within a manufactured product/dish then the appropriate control steps must be established and managed effectively.

It is important that the business and its staff are aware of the composition of foods that they use in order to cater for and communicate with customers with food allergies and intolerances.

Allergen Critical Control Points (ACCP) are steps throughout the internal food chain where either the intentional or unintentional inclusion of food allergens can occur. Where a customer has requested a meal that excludes 'allergen x' then the business must be able to become back up any claims that the meal served does not include the specified allergen, hence robust procedures and controls must be in place in order to prevent such contamination.

Food allergen matrices have been created for the businesses to enable them to identify hazards and manage appropriate controls at unit level:

ACCP/01: Delivery & Receipt of food - June 2020 (V1)

ACCP/02: Storage & Decanting of allergenic ingredients - June 2020 (V1)

ACCP/03: Preparation of allergen-free dishes - June 2020 (V1)

ACCP/04: Cooking & Reheating of allergen-free dishes - June 2020 (V1)

ACCP/05: Cooling & Storage of allergen-free dishes - June 2020 (V1)

ACCP/06: Display & Service of allergen-free dishes - June 2020 (V1)

ACCP/07: Transportation of allergen-free dishes - June 2020 (V1)