Handbook of Food Allergen Detection and Control

Simon Flanagan is an internationally acclaimed specialist in the field of food allergens. He is a biochemist by training and gained experience of working in a variety of sectors within the food industry before joining Reading Scientific Services Ltd (RSSL) in 2002. In his RSSL role Simon has worked with global blue-chip manufacturers, retailers and ingredient suppliers, as well as manufacturers of specialist dietary products to provide guidance on risk assessment, risk mitigation and management and analytical techniques for allergen detection in foods. Simon’s remit involved a broad scope of projects, from futureproofing corporate allergen policy through to independent expert site risk assessment and training programs and incident management.

Since 2005 Simon has been a key advisor to the Cadbury and more latterly Kraft / Mondelez International on allergen control and responsible for developing policy, strategy and training. In 2016 Simon became an extended member of the Food Safety Team and is currently the Global Lead for Food Allergens and Food Allergy advising the business on both proactive allergen strategy and reactive lead for allergen incidents.

Simon is affiliated with numerous professional bodies, industry groups and technical committees (ILSI Europe, FDF, BRC, EFSA, FSA, FARRP, FAO/WHO) and has published numerous articles in peer reviewed journals. He was also principal editor for the ‘Handbook of Food Allergen Detection and Control’. He was presented with a technical leadership award in 2014 for contributions to food safety and a SOFHT industry award for the development of RSSL’s practical allergen workshops. He was also awarded ‘Food and Drink Scientist of the Year’ at the FDF awards in 2018.

Simon was one of the first to develop a practical methodology for quantitative allergen risk assessment (QRA), which is becoming widely accepted as industry best practice; QRA was recently recommended by The WHO/FAO Ad-Hoc expert group on Food Allergen Risk Assessment for the application of Precautionary Allergen Labelling.