Albert Heijn is testing a tool which will alert customers to potential allergens in products while they are doing their shopping. The Allergy Check is being tested for three months at the AH XL in Zaandam, is to see if customers find this way of providing information useful.

The Allergy Check is activated on a hand-held scanner at the start of their shopping trip by indicating to which ingredients the customer is allergic to. Then when individual products are scanned customers will see on the display if a product contains that particular ingredient.

Simone Hertzberger, Albert Heijns's head of quality and product integrity, said that 10 per cent of the Dutch population is allergic to certain food allergens. And, overall 25 per cent of Dutch households are affected by allergies. "With Allergy Check we want to make it much clearer to our customers who suffer from food allergies and intolerances what ingredients are contained in a product."

Allergy Check reveals information about ingredients which have to be legally declared:gluten; lactose; milk proteins; lupine; mustard; nuts; peanuts; shellfish; celery; sesame; soya; sulphates and fish.

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