**2. Materials and Methods**

The data were obtained directly from the EU RASFF open data portal in .xlsx format [15]. The following items were available for each notification: date of notification; notifying country; origin country; type of product (food, food contact material, or feed); product category; product involved; hazard category; substance/finding; full hazard; subject; notification type; type of control; risk decision; distribution status; action taken after notification; and result (if available). From this online open database, notifications for the period between 1 January 2018 and 31 December 2021 were extracted under the hazard category filter "allergens" and type of product "food".

The following data were studied: date of notification; notification type; notifying country; origin country; type of control; main allergen hazard; product category; action taken after notification; and food product involved.
