New label law has unintended effect: Sesame in more foods
https://apnews.com/article/sesame-allergies-label-b28f8eb3dc...
https://apnews.com/article/sesame-allergies-label-b28f8eb3dc...
Facts like that are completely irrelevant before a judge and jury, so their position is understandable and probably for the best (for them).
>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.
Basically the options are redo your production process so that there are no traces of sesame or add enough to put it on the ingredients list.
There's two conflicting laws here - one says you MUST label if you have allergens (this one allows the "may or may not contain the devil's seeds") and another says you cannot imply or state your product has something it does not have (this appears to be the one banning "may or may not").
Of course this is the exact opposite of what TFA had to say.
You either follow difficult procedures to avoid cross-contamination, or you make it an ingredient. There is no option in between.
There must be something different about sesame and it's role in the food pipeline that makes it harder to deal with compared to other common allergens.
There's some explanation here:
https://www.tuvsud.com/en/press-and-media/2018/january/tuv-s...
Control and consistency.
If you don't measure an ingredient, you are at the mercy of a zillion different things for how much of that ingredient is present and your consistency is terrible. In addition, people who are only weakly allergic to said ingredient can never be sure if there is too much of it. People who go into anaphylaxis have to avoid your stuff altogether, anyhow.
If, however, you measure the ingredient, now the amount is precisely controlled. People who are only weakly allergic can test and now know from that point on that they are okay (or not).
The people who are jumping up and down are the people who are strongly allergic. They expected the adopted law to cause manufacturers to have to pristine clean their lines when, in reality, the precise opposite occurred--the manufacturers added the ingredient and made their lines "dirtier".
> If the ingredients don’t include sesame, companies must take steps to prevent the foods from coming in contact with any sesame, known as cross-contamination.
> Food industry experts said the new requirements aren’t simple or practical.
> 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.
> Instead, some companies have taken a different approach. Officials at Olive Garden said that starting this week, the chain is adding “a minimal amount of sesame flour” to the company’s famous breadsticks “due to the potential for cross-contamination at the bakery.”