Foodworks.online Nutrition Labelling fully supports the new Plain English Allergen Labelling (PEAL) requirements, generating PEAL-compliant allergen statements for your nutrition labels.
About the new PEAL requirements
Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ) has made changes to the legislation for allergen labelling for food products. The new PEAL requirements are mandatory from February 2024.
Under the new PEAL requirements, allergen information must be declared in these ways:
- in simple, plain English terms using the specified required names as outlined in Schedule 9
- in a specific format and location on the label
- in bold font in both the ingredient list and in the summary statement
- with a co-located allergen summary statement beginning with the word ‘Contains’
- naming individual tree nuts with their required names per Schedule 9
- with mollusc and crustacean categories replacing shellfish per Schedule 9
- with increased clarity around wheat and gluten
- declaring allergens present in processing aids
PEAL in Foodworks.online Nutrition Labelling
In Foodworks.online, once you declare the allergens for your raw materials, your recipes automatically inherit these values.
On the recipe labels generated for you, the allergens are declared according to PEAL requirements, including being bolded in the ingredients statement and being declared appropriately in a Contains or May contain statement.
The following statements illustrate some of the changes:
The changes shown are as follows:
- Allergens are declared in bold type font that distinctly contrasts with the other text in the statement of ingredients.
- Processing aids that contain an allergen are declared in both the statement of ingredients and the allergen summary statement.
- Gluten is declared in the allergen summary statement and the source of gluten is declared by its cereal name in the ingredients list.
- Allergens are declared using their required names as per Schedule 9. For example, the specific nuts are declared instead of using the generic name ‘tree nuts’.
- The allergen summary statement begins with the word ‘Contains’, is in bold type font, is the same size type as the allergens declared in the statement of ingredients and the entire text is distinctly separated from the ingredients list.
How to use Foodworks.online for PEAL
To use Foodworks.online to generate PEAL-compliant statements on your nutrition labels, check these articles on our support site:
- Generating allergen declarations for labels
- Declare allergens for a raw material
- Override allergen declarations for a recipe or sub recipe
- Set warning and advisory statements for a recipe or sub recipe
Note: The desktop software, FoodWorks 10 Nutrition Labelling, does not support PEAL. Foodworks 10 is legacy software superseded by Foodworks.online. A migration tool is available for users to import data from FoodWorks 10 Nutrition Labelling into Foodworks.online Nutrition Labelling. For more information on migrating your data, see our support site. If you have questions, don’t hesitate to get in touch.
More about the PEAL requirements
Businesses have until February 2024 to comply with the PEAL requirements in the updated Australia New Zealand Food Standards Code. Until February 2024, you can continue to use the existing allergen declarations, or you can choose to start applying the new PEAL requirements (but not a mix of both). Food products labelled after February 2024 must comply with the new requirements. For a further 2 years, there is a stock-in-trade period where any food labelled with the existing allergen declarations before the end of February 2024 may be sold for up to 2 years (until February 2026).
For more information, see:
- Australia New Zealand Food Standards Code: Standard 1.2.3 – Information requirements – warning statements, advisory statements and declarations
- Australia New Zealand Food Standards Code: Schedule 9 – Mandatory advisory statements
- Food Industry Guide to Allergen Management and Labelling (FIGAML)
- Allergen Bureau News 27 January 2021
- Food Standards Proposal P1044
Use Foodworks.online to get your allergen labelling in line with the new PEAL requirements.
Try Foodworks for 14 days for free. No credit card required.
