Insect-based foods are starting to enter the EU market, raising concerns about their safety. Allergic consumers might be exposed to even a greater risk, since insects have proven to trigger allergic symptoms, particularly in patients sensitised to crustaceans. Current legislation does not enforce producers to include insects in the list of allergenic ingredients. Food allergenicity risk assessment (FARA) is still at its infancy, and the debate on the need to define allergen thresholds is open. In this paper, we aimed at applying the concepts of stochastic quantitative FARA to describe present and future scenarios of exposure to foods containing Tenebrio molitor, the yellow mealworm. According to our risk characterisation, mealworm-based food products represent a major risk for individuals allergic to crustaceans to develop symptoms after the consumption of a dose lower than a serving size. Moreover, other allergic consumers might be at risk. A correct labelling of insect containing foods would help safeguarding the health of EU allergic consumers. Quantitatively assessing the risk of allergenicity provides a clear description of the problem, facilitating the decisional process of the risk manager, supporting the implementation of effective allergen management procedures and limiting the phenomenon of uninformative precautionary labelling.

昆虫食品开始进入欧盟市场，引起人们对其安全性的担忧。过敏的消费者可能面临更大的风险，因为事实证明昆虫会引发过敏症状，尤其是对甲壳类过敏的患者。当前的法律没有强制生产者将昆虫列入过敏成分清单中。食品致敏性风险评估（FARA）仍处于起步阶段，有关定义过敏原阈值的必要性的争论仍在进行中。在本文中，我们旨在应用随机定量FARA概念来描述暴露于含有黄粉虫的食物的当前和未来情况，黄色粉虫。根据我们的风险特征，以粉虫为基础的食品代表了对甲壳类过敏的个体在食用低于每份剂量的剂量后出现症状的主要风险。此外，其他过敏性消费者也可能处于危险之中。正确标明含有昆虫的食物将有助于维护欧盟过敏消费者的健康。定量评估变应原风险可提供对问题的清晰描述，有助于风险管理者的决策过程，支持有效的变应原管理程序的实施，并限制了不提供信息的预防性标签现象。