Food Science Commons^™

Evaluation Of Qualitative Food Allergen Detection Methods And Cleaning Validation Approaches, Rachel C. Courtney

Department of Food Science and Technology: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Allergen control plans are increasingly used by the food industry to prevent allergen cross-contact and validation of these plans involves methods to detect allergen protein residues. A commonly used rapid allergen detection method is lateral flow devices, although research about their validation is lacking. The objective of this research was to investigate lateral flow devices, their specificity and sensitivity to milk proteins and milk-derived ingredients, swabbing conditions, and applications in cleaning validation.

Several lateral flow devices advertised to detect total milk did not detect whey proteins or whey-derived ingredients. The overload level of the kits was highly variable (ranging from …