Making Grocery Shopping With Food Allergies Easier
In an effort to make grocery shopping easier and safer for the many consumers suffering from food allergies, Food Allergy Research & Education (FARE) has partnered with Label Insight to provide these shoppers with more transparent food product information.
Label Insight, a NielsenIQ company that powers product attribute-driven growth across the consumer packaged goods (CPG) ecosystem, will integrate its database into the upcoming FARE Living app to expand its capabilities and allow consumers to identify products that meet their dietary considerations specific to food allergies and intolerances.
With an estimated 85 million Americans avoiding at least one of the top nine food allergens because of food allergies and intolerances, including 32 million with potentially life-threatening food allergies, there's a direct benefit for CPG brands, retailers and manufacturers to increase product transparency and provide resources that allow customers better access to products that meet these shoppers' particular dietary needs.
By leveraging Label Insight’s data, the upcoming FARE Living app will gain access to more than 540,000 universal product codes for food and beverage label information. The app will give users more control when grocery shopping by highlighting major allergens. Specific information that will become available includes products containing the top nine food allergens: egg, milk, peanuts, tree nuts, wheat, soy, fish, shellfish and sesame, as well as some information related to common food intolerances.
“Partnering with FARE not only helps the millions of Americans who experience allergic reactions to food ingredients, it also shows an unprecedented depth of trust in our data,” said Sherry Frey, VP health and wellness at Chicago-based NielsenIQ. “We believe this will create a safer and overall better customer experience for shoppers who deal with these dietary restrictions every day and will help retailers better understand their consumers and tailor offerings that meet their needs.”
“Whether it’s online or in a physical store, shopping for groceries can be a daunting task if you are living with a food allergy or have an intolerance,” said FARE CEO Lisa Gable, who is scheduled to retire in May 2022. “Our mission at FARE has always been to drive awareness and build advocacy to improve the lives of those struggling with food allergies and intolerances. Our partnership with Label Insight will allow us to take our initiatives to the next level, including working with food manufacturers to expand their database and to voluntarily move to clear and consistent precautionary allergen labeling. Through Label Insight’s trusted database, which they are constantly enhancing, we’re confident that we’re one step closer to creating a safer world for everyone — no matter their dietary needs.”
McLean, Va.-based FARE is a nongovernmental organization engaged in food allergy advocacy and the largest private funder of food allergy research. FARE aims to transform the future of food allergies through innovative initiatives that will lead to increased awareness, new and improved treatments and prevention strategies, effective policies and legislation, and novel approaches to managing these conditions.
One such legislation is the FASTER Act for Sesame Labeling. Shortly after the House of Representatives passed the act in April, President Joe Biden signed the monumental food allergy bill into law, requiring that sesame be labeled on packaged foods beginning Jan. 1, 2023, and that food allergy research be given greater priority by the federal government.
