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Comment by hitpointdrew | Hacker News Reader

Why can’t they just do what they have done with peanut? “May contain peanut.” It’s not a listed ingredient but it’s also isn’t ruled out since the product was manufactured at a plant that also makes product with peanut and the manufacturer cannot guarantee that there aren’t trace elements of peanut.

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From the article:

> Some companies include statements on labels that say a food "may contain" a certain product or that the food is "produced in a facility" that also uses certain allergens. However, such statements are voluntary, not required, according to the FDA, and they do not absolve the company of requirements to prevent cross-contamination.

”The unfortunate reality is that our equipment and bakeries are not setup for allergen cleanings that would be required to prevent sesame cross-contamination and was not an option for us"

So why hasn't the same effect happened with peanuts?

It has. There was a small controversy in 2016 when Kellogg's started adding peanut flour to some snacks to avoid cross-contamination concerns; one that's still around is their cheese crackers (https://www.kelloggs.com/en_US/products/austin-cheese-cracke...). The source article focuses a lot on bread bakeries, where peanuts are rare and sesame is extremely common.

IMO the FDA should say that such labels do absolve the company from liability, it’s ridiculous that it doesn’t.

That would have the same effect - you would see "may contain..." on every single product in lieu of precise labelling, and then it would be the same as having no labelling at all.

It says in the article that marking as “may contain” doesn’t actually cover them legally in cases of cross contamination.

That’s what this is about. Food producers are allowed to comply with a “may contain X” statement, or adding it to the list of ingredients. Previously, sesame was allowed to exist under “spice” or “natural flavors”. Now, there’s an explosion of “may contain sesame”, probably due to the difficulty of tracing sesame through their supply chain, and it may honestly be everywhere. For example I think if buns are cooked in the same facility as sesame buns, you gotta either add it and include it (which is what’s happening now) or create a lot of controls to ensure no cross contamination, and bakers may not be set up for separate cook areas, etc.)

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