Interlaboratory evaluation of two enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay kits for the determination of crustacean protein in processed foods

The labeling of foods containing material derived from crustaceans such as shrimp and crab is to become mandatory in Japan because of increases in the number of allergy patients. To ensure proper labeling, 2 novel sandwich enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) kits for the determination of crustacean protein in processed foods, the N kit (Nissui Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd, Ibaraki, Japan) and the M kit (Maruha Nichiro Holdings, Inc., Ibaraki, Japan), have been developed. Five types of model processed foods containing 10 and/or 11.9 microg/g crustacean soluble protein were prepared for interlaboratory evaluation of the performance of these kits. The N kit displayed a relatively high level of reproducibility relative standard deviation (interlaboratory precision; 4.0-8.4% RSDR) and sufficient recovery (65-86%) for all the model processed foods. The M kit displayed sufficient reproducibility (17.6-20.5% RSDR) and a reasonably high level of recovery (82-103%). The repeatability relative standard deviation (RSDr) values regarding the detection of crustacean proteins in the 5 model foods were mostly < 5.1% RSDr for the N kit and 9.9% RSDr for the M kit. In conclusion, the results of this interlaboratory evaluation suggest that both these ELISA kits would be very useful for detecting crustacean protein in processed foods.