I work in a 3PL as quality manager. We have around 6 customers, with many different products. One of our largest is vitamins, and they recently informed me that one of their products must be considered an allergen, as it contains fish oil. They claim that all the requirements of not storing above non-allergens applies, but their orders are largely pick-and-pack, and thus require this product to be mixed onto pallets every day.
I cannot find much information on shipping allergens with non-allergens, but if they were to tell us we cannot store this product with non-allergens due to a contamination risk, shouldn't there be issues with mixing it onto the same pallet with 15 other non-allergens? Is there any consistency required there that states the product must be shipped on their own pallets?
For the record, there is such a small amount of fish in the product, and it's in sealed inners, that are in plastic, that are in a sealed case. The customer's quality team has tried to have it delisted as an allergen, as they have other product with omegas, but do not require an allergen tag. I just believe that if there must be storage requirements implemented on our facility, there should be shipping ones as well.
If anyone has any guidance, it would be much appreciated.