The current status and issue of food allergen labeling in Korea

You Hoon Jeon; Hyun Hee Kim; Yong Mean Park; Gwang Cheon Jang; Hye-Young Kim; Hye Yung Yum; Jihyun Kim; Kangmo Ahn; Taek Ki Min; Bok Yang Pyun; Sooyoung Lee; Kyung Won Kim; Yoon Hee Kim; Jeongmin Lee; So-Yeon Lee; Woo Kyung Kim; Tae Won Song; Jeong Hee Kim; Yong Ju Lee

doi:10.4168/aard.2019.7.2.67

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Jeon, Kim, Park, Jang, Kim, Yum, Kim, Ahn, Min, Pyun, Lee, Kim, Kim, Lee, Lee, Kim, Song, Kim, and Lee: The current status and issue of food allergen labeling in Korea

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Allergy Asthma Respir Dis 2019;7(2):67-72.

Published online: 12 April 2019

DOI: https://doi.org/10.4168/aard.2019.7.2.67

The current status and issue of food allergen labeling in Korea

You Hoon Jeon¹, Hyun Hee Kim², Yong Mean Park, Gwang Cheon Jang⁴, Hye-Young Kim⁵, Hye Yung Yum⁶, Jihyun Kim⁷, Kangmo Ahn⁷, Taek Ki Min⁸, Bok Yang Pyun⁸, Sooyoung Lee⁹, Kyung Won Kim¹⁰, Yoon Hee Kim¹⁰, Jeongmin Lee¹, So-Yeon Lee¹², Woo Kyung Kim¹³, Tae Won Song¹⁴, Jeong Hee Kim¹⁵, Yong Ju Lee¹⁶

^¹Department of Pediatrics, Hallym University Dongtan Sacred Heart Hospital, Hwaseong

^²Department of Pediatrics, The Catholic University of Korea Uijeongbu St. Mary's Hospital, Uijeongbu

^³Department of Pediatrics, Konkuk University School of Medicine, Seoul Korea

^⁴Department of Pediatrics, National Health Insurance Corporation Ilsan Hospital, Goyang

^⁵Department of Pediatrics, Pusan National University School of Medicine, Yangsan

^⁶Department of Pediatrics, Seoul Medical Center, Seoul Korea

^⁷Department of Pediatrics, Samsung Medical Center, Sungkyunkwan University School of Medicine, Seoul Korea

^⁸Department of Pediatrics, Soonchunhyang University Hospital, Seoul Korea

^⁹Department of Pediatrics, Ajou University School of Medicine, Suwon, Korea

^¹⁰Department of Pediatrics, Yonsei University College of Medicine, Seoul Korea

^¹¹Department of Pediatrics, Yonsei University Wonju College of Medicine, Wonju

^¹²Department of Pediatrics, Childhood Asthma Atopy Center, Environmental Health Center, Asan Medical Center, University of Ulsan College of Medicine, Seoul Korea

^¹³Department of Pediatrics, Inje University Seoul Paik Hospital, Inje University College of Medicine, Seoul Korea

^¹⁴Department of Pediatrics, Inje University Ilsan Paik Hospital, Inje University College of Medicine, Goyang

^¹⁵Department of Pediatrics, Inha University Hospital, Incheon

^¹⁶Department of Pediatrics, Hallym University Kangnam Sacred Heart Hospital, Seoul Korea

Correspondence to: Yong Ju Lee https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0796-2558 Department of Pediatrics, Hallym University Kangnam Sacred Heart Hospital, 1 Singil-ro, Yeongdeungpo-gu, Seoul 07441, Korea Tel: +82-2-829-5142, Fax: +82-2-845-4469, E-mail: pedalllee@gmail.com

Received 6 September 2018 Revised 19 January 2019 Accepted 19 January 2019

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

With increasing need to prevent serious food allergy reactions, Korean food allergen labeling regulation has been revised repeat-edly. This paper aims to summarize current statuses of food allergen labeling in Korea and foreign countries and to analyze the issue of food allergen labeling regulation. Korean food labeling regulation currently requires 19 items and 22 foods to be reported on labels (eggs, milk, buckwheat, peanut, soybean, wheat, mackerel, crab, shrimp, pork, peach, tomato, sulfite, walnut, chicken, beef, squid, shellfish, and pine nut). However, some common food triggers (for example, almond, cashew nut, and kiwi fruit) are not included in the current labeling regulation. Another issue is that the Korean labeling regulation has not yet been fully implemented for nonprepacked foods; thus, consumers still have difficulty in correctly identifying allergenic ingredients in food. It should be assessed whether warning statements for cross-contamination are reasonable. To prevent the occurrence of serious reactions from accidental ingestion, efforts must be made to solve recently raised issues including the items required to be listed on food labels, the system of standards for labeling and display methods.

Keywords: Allergy, Food, Labeling

References

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Table 1.

Comparison between the foods in current food allergen labeling and common causative foods in Korean children

Food ingredients of current food allergen labeling in Korea^7,*	Major triggering foods of immediate-type FA in Korean children⁹	Major triggering foods of anaphylaxis in Korean children¹⁰
1. Eggs (poultry only)	1. Hen's egg	1. Cow's milk
2. Milk	2. Cow's milk	2. Hen's egg
3. Buckwheat	3. Walnut	3. Walnut
4. Peanut	4. Wheat	4. Wheat
5. Soybean	5. Peanut	5. Buckwheat
6. Wheat	6. Soybean	6. Peanut
7. Mackerel	7. Shrimp	7. Meat
8. Crab	8. Buckwheat	8. Fish
9. Shrimp	9. Crab	9. Pine nut^‡
10. Pork	10. Almond^†	10. Shrimp
11. Peach	11. Pine nut^‡	11. Crab
12. Tomato	12. Kiwi^†	12. Soybean
13. Sulfite (≥10 mg/kg of SO2)	13. Peach	13. Cereal^†
14. Walnut	14. Apple^†	14. Cashew nut^†
15. Chicken	15. Beef	15. Kiwi^†
16. Beef	16. Pork	16. Pupa^†
17. Squid	17. Tomato	17. Squid, small octopus
18. Shellfish (including oyster, abalone and mussels)	18. Mackerel	18. Peach
19. Pine nut	19. Chicken	19. Almond^†
	20. Cashew nut^†	20. Chinese yam^†

*Revised in 2015 (Ministry of Food and Drug Safety Notice No. 2015–20).

^† Not included in the current food allergen labeling.

^‡ Not included in the current food allergen labeling, but announced to be include (Ministry of Food and Drug Safety Notice No. 2017–363).

Table 2.

Comparison of Food Alle ergen Labeling between Korea and Foreign n Countries

Korea⁷	USA¹¹	European Union¹²	Canada¹³	Japan^14,15
1. Eggs (poultry only)	1. Eggs	1. Eggs	1. Eggs	< Mandatory>
2. Milk	2. Milk	2. Milk	2. Milk	1. Eggs
3. Peanut	3. Peanut	3. Peanut	3. Peanut	2. Milk
4. Walnut	4. Nuts (e.g., almond, walnut, pecan)	4. Nuts	4. Nuts (almond, hazel)	3. Peanut
5. Wheat	5. Wheat	5. Gluten-containing cereals	5. Wheat	4. Wheat
6. Buckwheat	6. Soy	6. Soy	6. Wheat Rye	5. Buckwheat
7. Soy	7. Crustaceans (e.g., crab, lobster, shrimp)	7. Crustaceans	7. Gluten-containing cereals	6. Shrimp
8. Shrimp	8. fish (e.g., plaice, cod)	8. Fish	8. Soy	7. Crab
9. Crab		9. Sulfite (≥10 mg/kg of SO2)	9. Crustaceans	<Recommended>
10. Mackerel		10. Mollusk	10. Fish	Abalone, squid, salmon roe,
11. Shellfish (including oyster,		11. Mustard	11. Shellfish	orange, cashew nuts, kiwi fruit, beef, walnut, sesame, salmon, mackerel, soybean, chicken, banana, pork, matsutake, peach, yam, apple, and gelatin
abalone and mussels)		12. Sesame	12. Sulfite (≥10 mg/kg of SO₂)
12. Sulfite (≥10 mg/kg of SO₂)		13. Lupin	13. Mustard seed
13. Squid		14. Celery	14. Sesame seed
14. Pork
15. Chicken
16. Beef
17. Peach
18. Tomato
19. Pine nut

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