Food allergens testing

In recent years food allergens testing has risen to the top of food testing priorities. As food allergies and labeling requirements continue to increase worldwide, so does the demand for testing. The biggest challenges laboratories face with food allergen testing are sample preparation and choosing the right technologies.

To help laboratories with these challenges, SCIEX offers a proven solution that combines triple quadrupole mass spectrometry with ready-to-go allergen methods to provide the specificity and sensitivity needed to keep food products safe and meet labeling requirements and regulations.

Some of the most important regulated food allergens worldwide are nuts, cereals, eggs, milk and crustaceans. The EU incorporates the highest number of allergen commodities in its regulation EU FIC: N°1169/2011. In the US, allergens are regulated under the FASTER Act which added sesame to the list of major food allergens in 2023. 

Currently, 2 major technologies are used to measure allergens: mass spectrometry and ELISA (enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay). The most important advantages of mass spectrometry are that multiple allergens can be measured simultaneously and mass spectrometry is largely unaffected by changes caused by certain food processing steps, such as baking. In addition, cross-reactivity is not observed with mass spectrometry and methods are easy to expand by the user by adding more analytes like peptides to existing target lists.

Matrices such as nuts and cereal with high carbohydrate, protein and fat content are inherently prone to causing complications during analysis, which can affect sensitivity and robustness. SCIEX has developed and evaluated methods that solve these challenges. Our sample preparation method in combination with our robust source design provides a powerful toolset to help you succeed.

But don't just take our word for it.

Our method is AOAC accredited for First Action AOAC Official Method status and meets the minimum method performance requirements stated in AOAC SMPR 2016.002.