3 ms·
> In a twist few would have expected, however, many food companies have chosen to add small amounts of sesame flour to products that were previously sesame-free
by zamfi 4y ago
> In a twist few would have expected, however, many food companies have chosen to add small amounts of sesame flour to products that were previously sesame-free, instead of conducting the careful cleaning required for foods without sesame.
I beg to differ -- this is exactly what should have been expected if this is the cheapest path forward.
The FDA doesn't allow precautionary labeling (e.g., "may contain traces of..." or "manufactured in a facility that also...") in place of "proper cleaning procedures". This impacts sesame because a ton of industrial-scale bakers produce both sesame and non-sesame items on the same lines, and these could in theory be cleaned and verified, and precautionary labeling isn't a substitute for that.
So, forced to either (a) overhaul likely-daily cleaning procedures to ensure and then later verify that not even trace amounts of sesame protein are present in products on the line, or (b) sprinkle some literal <s>fairy</s> sesame dust into these items and list it in the ingredients, manufacturers understandably chose the latter.
Perhaps future facilities will be built to segregate sesame from non-sesame production lines, but current ones don't -- and a retrofit probably costs far more than whatever reduction in sales they may face from including sesame.
- JohnFen 4y agoWouldn't it be a lot cheaper and easier to just say "contains trace amounts of sesame" and not actually add sesame intentionally? I don't understand the point of actually adding sesame.
- pauby 4y ago> The FDA doesn't allow precautionary labeling (e.g., "may contain traces of..." or "manufactured in a facility that also...") in place of "proper cleaning procedures".
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- cjensen 4y agoThe article says that manufacturers are not allowed to list sesame as an ingredient unless it actually is an ingredient. The law says they can't warn about potential sesame contamination. Instead it must either be an actual ingredient or manufacturers must clean the equipment. Seems like this fiasco could have been avoided if someone had gone and talked to manufacturers about how big a deal it would be to clean stuff. I'm guessing this isn't a question of a small amount of profit loss; it's probably a big expensive deal to comply with this law.
- JohnFen 4y ago> The article says that manufacturers are not allowed to list sesame as an ingredient unless it actually is an ingredient. Correct. I wasn't suggesting adding it to the ingredients list. > The law says they can't warn about potential sesame contamination. The law does not say that. It says that manufacturers can't do that instead of following standard cleaning practices. > Instead it must either be an actual ingredient or manufacturers must clean the equipment. Yes, they must clean the equipment. None of this is new stuff, this has been the case for many years. Why is it suddenly too much of a burden for food manufacturers to clean their equipment? Is wanting to avoid cleaning not a huge red flag about that manufacturer? > I'm guessing this isn't a question of a small amount of profit loss; it's probably a big expensive deal to comply with this law. Knowing large corporations, I'm guessing that the economics of it aren't the real issue at all. If it costs substantially more, they'd just add a few cents to the cost of the food.
- fakedang 4y agoCleaning equipment is expensive, and results in significant downtime. Plus in any manufacturing process for a commodity good, you really want a process that is as continuous as possible - any disruption might even cause some equipment wear. Also, there's a limit to which you can price extra, a limit of what a customer would be willing to pay for it, VS look for a substitute product.
- JohnFen 4y ago> Cleaning equipment is expensive, and results in significant downtime Of course. So what? > there's a limit to which you can price extra How much extra do you think they'd have to charge? I don't know, myself. Given the volume commercial facilities tend to do, I would be shocked if it even adds as much as a dime to the price. > look for a substitute product Ideally, these rules would apply to all such companies, so no company would have any sort of cost advantage over the others as a result of this. The problem here is simple greed, leading some manufacturers to engage in cruel shenanigans in order to maintain a sliver of their profit margin.
- hotpotamus 4y agoInterestingly, the same dynamics appear to apply to the cocaine market. My friend was telling me that he regrets he can no longer safely take cocaine because he's afraid of getting fentanyl mixed in due to cross contamination of lab/work surfaces. I suppose it's tough for manufacturers of all types out there.
- itronitron 4y agoThey're creating their own problems. Our family simply doesn't purchase food items that have specific allergens, or that has the potential for cross contamination with them.