Comprehensive landscape of allergen labelling on pre-packed snack foods available in China

Food allergen labelling is an important tool to reduce the risk of exposure to food allergens, especially for highly processed pre-packed snack foods. In order to understand the current status of allergen labelling on pre-packed snack foods in China, this study conducted a stratified random sampling on 9 major categories of pre-packed snack foods in Nanchang, Jiangxi Province, China. 1497 pre-packed snack foods from 15 pre-packed food sale points were collected for information analysis of allergen labelling. It was found that the prevalence of the allergen labelling and precautionary allergen labelling for pre-packed snack foods was 66.93% and 18.77%, respectively, while the overall unqualified rate of the allergen labelling was 29.14%, with the unqualified rate of micro enterprises being as high as 36.88%. This inspires us to strengthen the food safety management concept of food enterprises, accelerate the establishment of mandatory food allergen labelling and standardized management systems in China, and ultimately better protect the health and rights of consumers.