Development of milk and egg incurred reference materials for the validation of food allergen detection methods

Background Effective allergenic risk assessment and management are important to limit the use of precautionary statements such as 'may contain' and to be able to protect allergic consumers. However, such approaches require reliable analytical tools for the detection of allergens in food. Very few validation data are available for the comparison of results obtained with different allergen detection methods. This is certainly due to the lack of harmonized validation protocols and of recognized reference materials. Aims The Monitoring and Quality Assurance Working Group on Food Allergens will provide incurred reference materials with egg and milk proteins at various concentrations. Materials and Methods The development of an incurred reference material for the analysis of milk and egg allergens in a baked cookie food matrix is described. Results and Discussion We present the results of the development of the incurred reference material and a prering trial with two incurred reference materials for milk detection methods: cookies and soy-based infant formula. Conclusions The material produced seems to be suitable as reference material as well as for testing the performance of test kits. The forthcoming validation study according to the harmonized validation protocol will significantly and positively impact on future validation procedures.