How to Shut Down a Sports Nutrition Manufacturer in One Easy Step – Avoiding Allergen Cross- Contamination

When your sports nutrition business relies on meeting food safety standards, a cross-contamination incident is your worst nightmare. Allow allergens to stray and you’ll have to destroy product and stop production for a full clean down while paying wages and leaving orders unfulfilled. And that’s the best-case scenario. If a product recall is required, you’ll face an additional hefty bill and damage to your reputation. Should a customer report contamination to the local authority, you can’t recommence manufacturing until you’ve had the all-clear. Having a contamination response plan in place is good but you can be even more proactive by preventing an occurrence in the first place. Read on to find out… What Counts as an Allergen? Maintaining control over every ingredient poses a serious challenge to a sport nutrition manufacturer, particularly as around 20% of the UK population suffer from food hypersensitivity. The law requires you to label and control 14 of the most common allergens in your products, including items like milk, nuts and soya. However, if you have additional product accreditations, you’ll need to beware of broader contamination risks. For example, Vegan Society endorsement relies on products being free from animal products, genetically modified compounds or animal tested ingredients. This takes material control up another level. Accidents Happen To cater for intolerance, dietary choices and specific training needs, products are becoming increasingly niche requiring smaller runs and more frequent, thorough system clean downs and changeovers. This means that there is a greater chance of human error: from the inclusion of incorrect ingredients to mislabeling product and not having cleaned sufficiently well.

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