Protecting our customers is our highest priority as a food manufacturer. When it comes to allergens, we employ best practice to minimise risks in our business, but we do not believe free from gluten, nut or dairy claims are possible in any factory site which handles these allergens. Instead, we offer our customers transparency regarding our allergen handling process to give you reassurance that, whilst we do not uphold free from claims, we take segregation and handling very seriously.

We control allergens from the first point of selecting suppliers all the way through to delivering the finished product to our customers. Here is more detail about our allergen control process:

1) Supplier Approval

• We review the supplier (and manufacturer) to ensure the measures they have in place are adequate to control the risk of cross contamination.
• We source from approved suppliers (often BRC/ GFSI certified).
• All ingredient specifications are reviewed regularly to ensure we are capturing the most up to date information from our suppliers.
• Ingredient specifications must include allergen presence and possible cross contamination risk throughout the supply chain.
• Supplier threat and vulnerability assessments are reviewed to ensure cross contamination risks in the supply chain are understood.
• When a product is set up on our database, allergen presence in the ingredient is automatically printed onto all intake and production paperwork

2) Arrival

• The allergen presence of goods arriving at our warehouse is identified by our system to ensure they are handled, labelled and stored appropriately.
• Where an ingredient is perceived to be high risk for allergen cross contamination, further laboratory testing may be undertaken, or laboratory results requested from the supplier before the goods are booked into the warehouse.
• Once we’re happy to accept the stock, ingredients containing allergens are stored in an area exclusive to that allergen.

3) Processing

• All allergenic ingredients are weighed out using colour coded scoops
• Protective clothing is changed after handling allergens
• All food contact surfaces are washed down and sanitised after use
• Scheduled allergen swabbing is in place for food contact surfaces to demonstrate that the cleaning process is effective at removing the allergens used on the previous run
• Production is scheduled so that the risk of cross contamination between products is minimised
• All packaging is reviewed against ingredient specifications to ensure allergens are declared accurately
• All production and warehouse workers undergo allergen handling training and competency assessment

We hope you find the information provided here useful and reassuring, but if you would like any additional information or have any queries about our allergen handling, please contact our customer service team on 0345 258 2782.