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FDA warns top U.S. bakery not to claim foods contain allergens when they don't
- isaacfrond 2y agoIt's may favorite example of unintended consequences. FDA orders bakers to list allergens. There are stiff penalties if you are allergenic but don't list the allergen. So? Bakers claim their product contains allergens, even if they don't. FDA doesn't like it. So? Bakers add allergens on purpose, so they can rightly claim it contains them.
- mytailorisrich 2y agoI don't know in the US (though it is mentioned at the end of the article) but here, UK, they tend to warn to the product "may contain ..." if there is any chance of contamination and that indeed appears a lot on bakery products and sandwiches.
- gumby 2y agoThis is common in the US as well, typically worded as "manufactured in a facility that also processes" although the wording you wrote is common too.
- chaostheory 2y agoI believe that was the status quo until now.
- ASalazarMX 2y agoIt's much cheaper than taking precautions against cross-contamination, but weasel words should not be part of disclaimers.
- mrspuratic 2y ago"precautionary allergen labeling" [1]. In EU it's still up to individual countries to regulate it, e.g. Ireland [2] > Use of a ‘may contain….’ statement, or similar, to indicate that the product may contain an allergen as a result of possible cross-contamination, must not take the place of good manufacturing practices (GMPs) in a food business. > GMPs must be in place to prevent cross-contamination [1] https://www.efanet.org/news/news/4327-efa-responds-to-codex-consultation-on-precautionary-allergen-labelling-such-as-may-contain https://www.efanet.org/news/news/4327-efa-responds-to-codex-... [2] https://www.fsai.ie/business-advice/labelling/labelling-allergens https://www.fsai.ie/business-advice/labelling/labelling-alle...
- fred_is_fred 2y agoThe next iteration will be adding 1 mg of almond flour, 1 mg of peanuts, and 1 mg milk to every ton of dough they make. Then it really will have the allergens.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- gus_massa 2y agoIt already happened: "New federal food label law has unintended effect: Sesame now in more foods" https://www.fox9.com/news/new-us-food-label-law-unintended-effect-sesame-more-foods https://www.fox9.com/news/new-us-food-label-law-unintended-e... (HN discussion https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34116211 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34116211 (244 points | Dec 2022 | 420 comments))
- washadjeffmad 2y agoWhen a friend whose son has tree and ground nut allergies told me this, I didn't believe it, but to her, it made perfect sense. With the thresholds for anaphylactic response so low, it's costlier not to be able to guarantee that there's no cross contamination than to just add the allergen.
- jokethrowaway 2y agoAnd imagine that it probably happens for every instance of centralisation and regulation in our society - with few people connecting the dots and tracing things back by some well-meaning but clueless bureaucrats
- llamaimperative 2y agoThis happens all over the place in private industry too. Nothing unique about regulation or bureaucracy that produces effects like this. If anything, centralization is the best tool to detect and avoid issues like this. Locally, every decision is completely reasonable. It’s only zoomed out that it doesn’t make sense.
- L-four 2y agoCentralization is better for most on average or even mean. Often leaving those on the fringe much worse off.
- lylejantzi3rd 2y agoIt's closer to: FDA orders bakers to list allergens. There are stiff penalties if you are allergenic but don't list the allergen. So? Bakers look at their production processes and determine there's a chance that enough allergens get into the product due to cross contamination to list it on the label, just in case. FDA doesn't like it. They expect the bakers to fix their cross-contamination issues at great expense to themselves. So? Bakers add allergens on purpose, so they can rightly claim it contains them. It's cheaper than setting up a clean room for every product line.
- starttoaster 2y agoIt's closer to: FDA orders bakers to list allergens. There are stiff penalties if you are allergenic but don't list the allergen. So? Bakers look at their production processes and determine there's a chance that enough allergens get into the product due to cross contamination to list it on the label, just in case. FDA doesn't like it. They expect the bakers to fix their cross-contamination issues at great expense to themselves. So? Bakers add allergens on purpose, so they can rightly claim it contains them. It's cheaper than setting up a clean room for every product line. FDA doesn't like it.
- rufus_foreman 2y agoThe only way to fix cross-contamination issues is to have a different production facility for every possible combination of allergens. Which is insane. I worked in a factory that packaged food, if one product contained an allergen, there was no way you could guarantee that a tiny amount of that allergen wouldn't get into some amount of the next product on that production line. No way. Not any possible way. You can clean all you want, you can do whatever you want, you can mandate whatever procedures you want, but there's just no way. Even if every half-awake half-sober completely uncaring third shift production worker (like 1990's era me) does everything exactly right, which they won't, even if they actually cared to, which they won't. The FDA is putting manufacturers in an impossible position, and it's insane. I have food allergies, believe me, I get it. But there's just no way. If a manufacturing facility produces products with tree nuts, someone with an allergy to tree nuts has to treat every product produced in or near that facility as though it contains tree nuts. That's reality. The FDA is not dealing with reality. The problem here is the US federal government.
- JohnMakin 2y agoThat is pretty funny, in a really sad way.
- ganzuul 2y agoIt's evil.
- fragmede 2y agoIt's the market being efficient. Markets solve everything, yay!
- esd_g0d 2y agoWhat do you propose instead in this case? Not trying to be snarky, just to get the discussion rolling. Asking everyone to "play nice" or "don't be evil" also often does not work in practice. I mean I'd love it if it did, but such is life.
- fragmede 2y agoI want the FDA to get meta and be empowerd to say if you add sesame to everything just to work around our rules, we'll fine you, because we're not idiots.
- kbelder 2y agoMarkets respond to regulation, and are distorted by it. It's not a problem with the market.
- morsch 2y agoEfficient markets enforcing centralized mass manufacturing of low quality baked goods is what caused the problem in the first place.
- llamaimperative 2y agoThis is a really counterproductive way to try to understand problems like this. No one is trying to do anything evil. Every step is individually quite reasonable and well within ethical bounds. The issue is that you can produce systems comprised solely of reasonable and ethical decisions that nonetheless yield an outcome that every actor would describe as bad. That is a useful way to interpret this situation and others, because you don’t waste your time looking for a boogeyman to call Evil and instead it prompts you to zoom out and operate on the bigger picture.
- brookst 2y agoCalifornia proposition 65 is the classic example. Since it requires buildings to warn visitors if they contain cancer-causing substances, and since no landlord can possibly know every substance that even tenant or visitor might have, every building has a "this building may or may not contain cancer-causing substances" placard. It's surreal and awesome.
- Molitor5901 2y agoMy favorite is the Marriott in downtown Monterey. This building may contain substances which is known ... Utter crap.
- flutas 2y agoMy favorite one is in Anaheim. Everyone ready for a trip to the happiest place on earth? One of the first things you see walking in... > The Disneyland Resort contains chemicals known to the state of California to cause cancer and birth defects or other reproductive harm. https://i.redd.it/utw067xgroh11.jpg https://i.redd.it/utw067xgroh11.jpg
- wccrawford 2y agoWe saw this on our trip there and had a good laugh about it.
- userbinator 2y agoThey should just have huge "The state of California contains..." signs all around the state borders.
- nonameiguess 2y agoThe problems with Prop 65 go beyond that. The legislation itself effectively made no attempt to define what it means for something to cause cancer. The commission put in charge of enforcement ultimately decided it would mean anything that current scientific evidence suggests has a 1 in 100,000 risk of eventually causing cancer if you are exposed to it for an entire lifetime. Subsequent lawsuits clarified that a substance must be included even if the risk is only proven to exist in non-human animals. Ironically, I never even knew this, but apparently the proposition only exists because Jane Fonda thought it would draw left-leaning voters to the polls to hopefully vote for Tom Bradley over George Deukmejian in the 1986 race for California governor. She and the other proponents didn't even think the proposition itself would pass. But the proposition did pass and Bradley wasn't even elected!
- Molitor5901 2y agoNow the FDA is saying adding those allergens on purpose is wrong. Figuratively, it's nuts. I suspect this will end up in court.
- edwinjm 2y agoYou can just label it as "might contain traces of X due to cross contamination". At least that's how they do it in Europe.
- alwa 2y agoThat seems to be the problem. New regulations [0] would require expensive measures to prevent cross-contamination if your label says that your product carries a risk of cross-contamination. But it's not "contamination" if it's an ingredient, so if one thing in your factory has sesame in it, you're better off adding a tiny bit of sesame to everything else than you would be scouring the whole line between products. Presumably the business folks have run the numbers, and you stand to lose less by losing the sesame-sensitive market than you would stand to gain by making everything verifiably sesame-free. For that matter, your sesame-sensitive folks probably are avoiding the product anyway if it "may contain traces," right? [0] https://www.food-safety.com/articles/8903-fda-updates-guidance-to-address-food-manufacturers-circumventing-allergen-cross-contact-requirements-for-sesame#:~:text=The%20FASTER%20Act%2C%20which%20became,prevent%20sesame%20allergen%20cross%2Dcontact https://www.food-safety.com/articles/8903-fda-updates-guidan....
- nox101 2y agoAnd, if all the big companies only make things with allergens, then a market appears for allergen free products that some company will see an opportunity and fill.
- mcmoor 2y agoIn lots of disability cases, share of people affected is very very small it's not profitable to cover them. Otherwise the companies would already fight to capture this market. This is why lots of disability measures are (or campaigned to be) enforced by government. But now we're out of realm of free market and on to production quota, and that comes with its own consequences.
- nox101 2y ago
- ganzuul 2y agoDoing the right thing would be a lot cheaper in the long run because a lot of people have mental problems from diet issues. Subsidies for common allergens that become cheap filler is another part of the epidemic.
- seewhydee 2y agoReducing the levels of allergens in food very likely has the side effect of promoting food allergies in children, due to lack of exposure during development. That's a strong negative consequence.
- Molitor5901 2y agoThis seems like splitting hairs on the part of the FDA. FDA officials acknowledged Tuesday that statements that a product “may contain” certain allergens “could be considered truthful and not misleading.” Bimbo officials have until July 8 to identify steps taken to remedy the issue — or to explain why the labeling doesn't violate FDA standards. So a baker.. who adds (insert allergy ingredient here), in minute quantity so they can legally say it contains it, is still in the wrong because that product does not normally contain said ingredient? What is a baker to do? I think it is wholly unreasonable to say a baker cannot say on the product that the product may contain traces of an ingredient, when they cannot 100% say it does not. This just seems like splitting hairs and unnecessarily penalizing the baker. We should want a food maker to list all possible allergens that could be present, not just are present in the foods.
- utensil4778 2y agoThis is about sesame. Last year or so, the FDA changed the rules about sesame as an allergen. Some bakeries then decided to just slap "may contain traces of sesame" on everything so they didn't have to pay the cost of actually ensuring there's no cross-contamination. This has significantly harmed consumers who are actually allergic to sesame. Now there's effectively no way to know if a baked product will actually contain sesame, so you either get to eat nothing or take the chance. It was a clear and flagrant abuse of the "may contain traces" mechanism. The bakeries caused harm for consumers as a way to avoid the coats of doing business safely.
- underseacables 2y agoIf it says it on the label, and you're allergic to it, then you shouldn't eat it. This doesn't harm consumers at all.
- Detrytus 2y agoIt does harm consumers by severely limiting their choices, especially if companies start putting the warning on every product by default, instead of actually making reasonable effort to prevent contamination.
- eulgro 2y agoI used to work in a cookie factory, we often made products for private brands and in some recipes we purposefully added eggs so that it would appear as an ingredient and not "may contain traces of".
- scop 2y agoAny other interesting tidbits from working in a cookie factory? I'm genuinely curious.
- dxbydt 2y agoif you must know, there is a policy to handle cookies. There is also a manager for all the cookies. This manager tracks all the cookie handlers. The cookies themselves are stored in a cookie store. While legend has it Arthur Van Hoff designed this whole setup, if you look closely in java.net, the author of CookiePolicy, CookieHandler, CookieManager and CookieStore is actually Edward Wang. Anyways it is not important. Since one cannot maintain a session without session cookie, effectively the entire human population on the internet works in the cookie factory.
- galdosdi 2y agoThis is why I read Hacker News
- autoexec 2y agoExactly the kind of thing the FDA has a problem with: > "Because it can be difficult and expensive to keep sesame in one part of a baking plant out of another, some companies began adding small amounts of sesame to products that didn't previously contain the ingredient to avoid liability and cost. FDA officials said that violated the spirit, but not the letter, of federal regulations." It seems that they prefer the "may contain" wording: > FDA officials acknowledged Tuesday that statements that a product “may contain” certain allergens “could be considered truthful and not misleading.” As a consumer, I'd much rather know for sure if a food has something in it that could kill me in it. If companies really want add allergens to their products unnecessarily, disclose that unambiguously, and limit their pool of potential customers that seems better to me than companies just slapping on a label saying that the product might contain every possible deadly allergen and letting customers take their chances or avoid them entirely.
- gumby 2y agoFWIW Bimbo (a Mexican company) is the largest baking company in north america -- when you go to the typical grocery store almost all the baked goods will be from Bimbo regardless of the label (https://bimbobakeriesusa.com/our-brands https://bimbobakeriesusa.com/our-brands)
- JumpCrisscross 2y agoWhy are some of their brands just pictures of sandwiches?
- lotsofpulp 2y agoWhatever the 7th row, 4th column is, it does not look appetizing.
- gumby 2y agoI don't know, cinnamon bread french toast with sauteed apricots and cockroaches is a mix of carbs, fiber and protein, though probably should have more protein for a better nutritional balance.
- JumpCrisscross 2y agoThey added the cockroaches to get the protein count up.
- fouc 2y agolooks like pecan nuts
- gumby 2y agoThat’s just the vegan version.
- orange_fritter 2y agoThere's probably just some ~Wordpress dev who picked from a selection of B-Roll. The CEO probably marginally understands bread and isn't a raisin french toast peanut butter freak.
- rdtsc 2y agoSo I don't get it why the bakeries didn't go for the "may contain" wording to start with. I guess one was the first to use "does contain" and then purposefully added sesame, everyone else thought that was particularly "clever" and copied it?
- underseacables 2y agoI think it has to do with the FDAs' extremely limited authority. To really remove a product, they have to use the federal trade commission to declare something as misbranded. Similar to what they do with dietary supplements.
- amanaplanacanal 2y agoI believe the FDAs position is that the “may contain” wording was not legally sufficient. The product has to either contain the allergen, or not contain the allergen, and be labeled appropriately. Which is what led to bakeries adding sesame to everything to begin with.
- rdtsc 2y agoAh that explains it, thanks. I guess we can watch now how bakeries invent a “plausible” need to add sesame. Previously they admitted the true reason why they added sesame and got in trouble so to speak. So now they’ll fund some research or publish some article somewhere indicating sesame makes the bread taste better and point to that as the reason.
- underseacables 2y agoThis seems overkill. We should want to encourage food manufacturers to list all possible contaminants.
- VBprogrammer 2y agoThe driver should be to give people with allergies the information they need to know whether they can eat something safely. Allowing companies to list every possible contaminant regardless of how likely it is to be in a product doesn't help anyone. It just leads to the "contents may be hot" problem on a coffee.
- tracker1 2y agoWell... the FDA won't allow companies to just list "may contain" for sesame, they have to have effectively multiple plants in complete isolation, or... add a tiny bit of sesame to everything and affirmatively state so. In this case, I prefer the "may contain" verbiage... saying something "does not contain" is a practical minefield. If you're that sensitive to something, find a producer that makes what you're asking for, or if you can tolerate a small amount, or make your own food from basic ingredients.
- VBprogrammer 2y ago> If you're that sensitive to something, find a producer that makes what you're asking for, or if you can tolerate a small amount, or make your own food from basic ingredients. The group of people for whom "we take proper control of allergens" is a selling point is a very small one. One of the reasons government exist is to protect people who's interests would not be commercially viable - regulating that building are accessible with a wheelchair etc. Proper allergen control is the cost of doing business in that industry, attempting to blatantly side step regulation should be met with investigation and fines which make doing the right thing the cheaper option. The idea that someone with an allergy should make all of their own food from basic ingredients is comically naive. Essentially ostracizing them from all social events where food is involved.
- umvi 2y agoAt this point it seems like it might be more effective to mandate the opposite: labels that indicate that the product is allergen free for X class of allergen. That way the default (no label) = might contain allergens, and the presence of the label guarantees your safety. Companies that take allergen cross contamination seriously can tout the label (and win the business of the allergic), companies that don't won't resort to purposefully including allergens in their product to avoid having to overhaul their cross contamination practices.
- NoMoreNicksLeft 2y agoThis makes sense from a practical standpoint, but from a litigative standpoint not having the warning label on those products with allergens exposes the company to liability. I also suspect that if there is an incident, this company might be able to have the government found liable for preventing it from warning customers.
- underseacables 2y agothe government found liable for preventing it from warning customers. Very interesting idea. I wonder if there is a similar situation in which the government prevented a company from alerting customers to something. The only thing I can come up with is FISA warrants.
- umvi 2y agoSeems to have worked for gluten, at least. i.e. Consumers look for "gluten free" labelling rather than "This product contains gluten" labelling. If I were the FDA I'd standardize the nutrition label to have a clearly labelled allergen section in which you can reliably use to check that the product is free of X allergen. Of course a naive implementation of this would mean that water bottles and stuff will have a big long list of "gluten free, peanut free, dairy free" so it probably requires a bit more thought.
- john01dav 2y agoIt's fine to have such long lists because the alternative is more complicated rules that might even be subjective. Clarity from subjectivity or mistakes with complicated rules is more important when safety is at risk than having less text on a label.
- kurthr 2y agoWhen Bimbo first changed Orowheat ingredients in their oat wheat bread (pre-pandemic) they didn't announce it. I searched the web to figure out what happened since even the weight of the bread was noticeably off (tried weighing it on a scale). The new on-line label of ingredients, nutrition, and weight were ~10% off (over an oz), but they were still using the old labeled bags and upc/barcode. I returned some to the grocery and let them know that all the ones on the shelf were also not the labeled weight. They were very annoyed.
- owenpalmer 2y agoI wonder if claiming non-existent ingredients could be an actual health risk as well. For example, if someone had unrelated but similar symptoms after eating the product. I wouldn't be surprised if certain medications cause harm if taken by someone who is not actually having the allergic reaction they are intended to treat.
- sandworm101 2y agoProduct idea: Allergen slurry. A tasteless/colorless paste containing all known allergens. Put a tiny drop in every batch of product (or at least claim to) and you can slap on an omni-label dissuading anyone and everyone who has even seen an allergist.
- palmtree3000 2y agoThey have this for babies! It comes in powder and puff form. It's to prevent babies from developing allergies.
- infecto 2y agoI think this is a sham and the FDA is overstepping. 0.2% of the population have sesame allergies. Maybe its higher the recent numbers I saw from a government study gave this number.
- jurassicfoxy 2y agoIsn't it about establishing a framework that people can trust, and closing loopholes? Just because the specifics are about sesame seeds, isn't that how the law works? Some stupid specific case forms the groundwork for the entire system?
- infecto 2y agoI don’t know honestly. I understand the spirit of it but I also don’t believe a factory should have to be serve markets that it chooses not too. My point which I did not get to very well is that I think the FDA is in a weird spot. I understand their side but I also wonder how a bakery can legally and with the spirit of the law decide to not serve customers with allergies.
- Miner49er 2y agoIt's not forced to serve markets. They are just not allowed to say their products contain sesame when they don't. They are mislabeling their products, and the FDA's job is to ensure products are labeled accurately.
- infecto 2y agoI am not sure which is why I think its a confusing spot. From the article... - "FDA officials indicated that allergen labeling is a “not a substitute” for preventing cross-contamination in factories." - "some companies began adding small amounts of sesame..FDA officials said that violated the spirit, but not the letter, of federal regulations" Hence my open ended question, how do you legally and with the spirit of the law not serve the allergy market? If you allergen labeling is not a substitute for preventing cross-contamination...what if I as a baker/factory don't care about cross contamination?
- bluelightning2k 2y agoDoesn't this incentivise them to deliberately add allergens, so they can keep them on the label
- antiquark 2y agoFDA is talking out of both sides of their mouth. From their own website: > Consumers may also see advisory statements such as “may contain [allergen] or “produced in a facility that also uses [allergen].” Such statements are not required by law and can be used to address unavoidable “cross-contact,” only if manufacturers have incorporated good manufacturing processes in their facility and have taken every precaution to avoid cross-contact that can occur when multiple foods with different allergen profiles are produced in the same facility using shared equipment or on the same production line, as the result of ineffective cleaning, or from the generation of dust or aerosols containing an allergen. https://www.fda.gov/food/food-labeling-nutrition/food-allergies https://www.fda.gov/food/food-labeling-nutrition/food-allerg...
- lpolovets 2y agoMy understanding is this allergen over-labeling was inspired by the FDA in the first place. https://www.fastcompany.com/90830854/sesame-seed-allergen-fda-food-law https://www.fastcompany.com/90830854/sesame-seed-allergen-fd... From the linked article (from Jan 2023): But sesame does differ in one distinct way from eggs, peanuts, shellfish, milk, and soy: The seeds are teeny tiny and hard to keep track of. This means they’re prone to “cross-contamination,” in food-allergy terms. If you operate a bakery that makes sesame bagels, the odds are decent that rogue seeds will end up in your other products, too. Bad news for people with severe sesame allergies. But it’s also expensive and frustrating for food manufacturers to ensure the seeds are kept away from other foods, if they’re on the FDA’s major allergens list. Advocates have therefore been warning since December that the FASTER Act is poised to have a counter effect. Rather than minimize cross-contamination, as they argue the law requires, many big food brands have opted to add sesame to their bread products, then simply declare it as an ingredient. They are intentionally adding sesame flour to “avoid complying with the spirit and intent of the FASTER Act,” FARE tells Fast Company. That is cheaper than certifying that their facilities are 100% sesame-free.
- forgetfreeman 2y agoEh, this seems like a pretty bullshit argument on the part of manufacturers though. My expectation for a food prep area is that I should be able to safely eat off of any surface. This level of cleanliness should eliminate any contaminants from the environment bigger than airborne dust and given how relatively cheap air filtration equipment is a case could be made there as well. In any case sesame seeds are a hell of alot bigger than dust so there's no great excuse to have them wandering from one product line to another.
- kortilla 2y agoPre-baked grain is not handled with those standards
- AnotherGoodName 2y agoHmm I wonder how good the us legal system is if a person insists they fell ill eating a product without a warning label and it goes to a jury trial? There will undoubtedly be a focus on ‘whether you can be 100% sure there was no sesame dust in the air’. Without a perfect vacuum clean room (that doesn’t really exist) you can’t be. As in even if you’re really fucking clean your probably losing the case in the American legal system. Fuck it my bread is made with a sprinkle of sesame flour and is known to contain potential carcinogens identified by the state of California.
- donatj 2y agoI mean this sounds like companies are just going to have to start adding allergens to be safe.
- kgwgk 2y ago"Because it can be difficult and expensive to keep sesame in one part of a baking plant out of another, some companies began adding small amounts of sesame to products that didn't previously contain the ingredient to avoid liability and cost."
- spaceguillotine 2y agoHaving allergies in the USA is already hell thanks to the media, so many people will think you're full of it but no really i'll be bed ridden for a day with nausea and a migraine, which means i just never go out to eat now due to the awkwardness of explaining it all.
- rsynnott 2y agoRecently saw something labelled as being made in a facility with ‘all allergens’. Which raises questions; in particular what are they doing with those cats? (I assume they meant all of the EU’s list of Interesting Allergens.)
- angelagershen 2y ago[dead]
- flyinprogrammer 2y agoAs a father of a 9 mo old with a sesame allergy found out the hard way with a trip to the ER... not only are we making our own bread now because of this, but also, so should you! Store bread has so much unnecessary crap in it, idk why we didn't do this sooner. It's a bummer that we basically can't eat anyone's baked goods outside of the house now, but hey, I guess the market decided I should keep my money and invest in my family, while the rest of you should enjoy the completely unnecessary calories, exposure, and expense of sesame flour. Also, as far as I can tell, most involved in this sucks, FDA for demanding regulation without investment, lobbyists for supplying a crap solution, and manufactures for not rising above it and rarely caring about the quality of their products. My recommendation is to boycott store bakery isles in general, invest in $BVILF, and use your kitchen to make friends with your neighbors and get everyone you know making bread/baked goods at home. It absolutely takes privilege to follow this journey, but pay it forward with the bread you can make at home with simple ingredients.
- s1artibartfast 2y agoThis story is about companies erring on the caution and labeling them with things like sesame even if they like don't contain it. The cost of proving it is sesame free and fines if they are wrong are not worth your business.
- flyinprogrammer 2y agoWhen companies install a handicap ramp in their business, it also incurs a cost. I don't blame the bread companies for their choice, and I'm in the minority now left with no choice but to boycott, and that's fine, their finance team likely said my dollars don't impact their bottomline, and they're likely correct. I also understand that a handicap ramp is likely considerably cheaper than retrofitting a manufacturing facility or building new sesame free facilities. It really would have been nice to see an investment from my taxes to lower the cost of this burden to enable new products. Obviously, that isn't going to happen. My point of also posting was to let you know that you're now also being exposed to sesame flour, kinda without your consent, because they value capital over quality, and that's also their choice, and a choice you're also now participating in.
- adolph 2y agoFrom the FDA letter, it looks like they want Bimbo to move the allergens from ingredients to a possible cross-contamination statement. Seems pretty straightforward. We also offer the following comments: Separate from the food allergen labeling requirements of the Act, firms may voluntarily place other information or statements on the labels of food products to disclose information about allergens to consumers. For example, firms may choose to voluntarily place allergen advisory statements on products to alert consumers to the possible presence of major food allergens due to cross-contact. Any allergen advisory statement must be truthful and not misleading. https://www.fda.gov/inspections-compliance-enforcement-and-criminal-investigations/warning-letters/bimbo-bakeries-usa-inc-672140-06172024 https://www.fda.gov/inspections-compliance-enforcement-and-c... On the other hand, Bimbo is misspelling Khorasan! The ingredient list declares “Kamut®” which is not part of the common or usual name of Khorasan wheat because it is a brand name. Furthermore, Khorasan is misspelled as “Khorsan.”
- userbinator 2y agoAdding allergens at a low level to everything may have a positive effect of reducing allergies in the population, a sort of automatic oral immunotherapy. I wonder if the FDA intended this effect, and if it'll lead to more controversy like with water fluoridation.
- fergie 2y agoThats actually a really interesting take.
- jack_riminton 2y agoNow it's been shown that gradual exposure to nuts can prevent allergies, maybe we should consider it a part of children's early stage health treatments https://news.unchealthcare.org/2023/02/novel-peanut-allergy-treatment-shown-to-be-safe-effective-and-lasting/ https://news.unchealthcare.org/2023/02/novel-peanut-allergy-...
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- turing_complete 2y agoInteresting name for a bakery
- resource_waste 2y ago"100% whole wheat" 2g added sugar per 60 calories. Wat FDA would have a better reputation if their drug approval was more pro-consumer.
- alephnerd 2y agoThe sesame labeling law was lobbied by Food Allergy Research & Education (FARE) [0] who are funded by the National Peanut Board, the National Dairy Council, and a number of Soy product manufacturers [1]. Essentially, the sesame law made it mandatory to label for sesame like you would for Dairy, Peanuts, and Soy. It was a blatant lobbyist attempt by non-Sesame producers that backfired. [0] - https://www.foodallergy.org/resources/how-fare-advocates-helped-pass-faster-act https://www.foodallergy.org/resources/how-fare-advocates-hel... [1] - https://www.foodallergy.org/corporate-partners https://www.foodallergy.org/corporate-partners
- NovemberWhiskey 2y agoIf guaranteed-sesame-free bread (or whatever) isn't a commercially viable product, then there's nothing that the FDA can do to change that. If you operate a punitive regulatory regime with respect to cross-contamination, you can't expect manufacturers to say "OK, we'll take the occasional fine and public-relations hit just to address this tiny part of the market" if that's not good business. If you buy cotton cleaning patches for cleaning rifles, they come with Prop 65 warnings these days. Not because cotton causes cancer, but because cleaning your rifle can expose you to lead, and because plaintiff's attorneys can sue in private enforcement actions. So does the rifle, the solvent and the brass cleaning rod.
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- fergie 2y agoMaybe I am missing something but surely "over-labelling" when there is a significant risk of cross-contamination is, in fact, the most sensible approach?
- pif 2y agoAs far as I can tell, this is what happens any time a new restriction is introduced without specifying who must bear the financial burden. Checking for allergens has a cost! Who is supposed to pay? If you want the general public to pay for it, then mandate that every bakery certifies the amount of allergen in their bread: all the bread will cost more and the allergic people will be able to choose safely. Otherwise, what else would you expect? Bakeries run their calculations and saw that certified sesame-free bread would cost too much for their customer base to keep buying from them, and opening a separate production line is not warranted by the predicted demand. What else could they do to stay in business?
- carrotcarrot 2y agoOverregulation is also a cost that can only be bared by large companies, it's contributed to the shrinking number of family farms and small businesses.
- thih9 2y agoI guess bakeries will now actually add a tiny bit of sesame to everything, seems easiest.
- jwilk 2y agoThe article mentions that: > Because it can be difficult and expensive to keep sesame in one part of a baking plant out of another, some companies began adding small amounts of sesame to products that didn't previously contain the ingredient to avoid liability and cost. FDA officials said that violated the spirit, but not the letter, of federal regulations.
- carrotcarrot 2y agoFDA needs to stop pursuing useless things like this and bab the use of glyphosate as a dessicant. There's plenty of other safety concerns in the American food system. This ain't it
- eggy 2y ago[1] "The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that the prevalence of food allergies has increased by 50 percent since the 1990s, making it a serious public health concern." The labeling and laws around them seem to be tricky business, however, it should be time to treat the disease and not just the symptoms. The above quote from the CDC tells me that medical advice to new parents and/or diet has created a monster, and it's time to undo the harm. I have 5 children from age 5 to 27 from two different women, and not one has food allergies. I realize it is anecdotal data, but I also don't recall there being so many people with various allergies growing up, and parents I have spoken to that seem to have done the same with doctors and dietary choices for their children don't have children with allergies. So, does this mean in my youth, either kids with allergies died, didn't have allergies, or avoided whatever allergens were out there and were such a small percentage it didn't register? Personally, we didn't give our children antibiotics every time they had cold-like symptoms, or go to the doctor often, and we introduced solids at a very early age along with nuts (in paste form - peanut butter, tahini when they were very young), and a diverse diet. There were families around us that had one of their kids on antibiotics once or more a year for years, and they wouldn't question it, and they were early on the gluten thing before it became a thing. I think it would be horrific to have a life-threatening allergy to even being exposed to the trace amount of anything. On the other side, I am so tired of not being able to find "normal" food without warnings, and the trend-of-the-day nutrients overcrowding the shelves and displacing other choices. It seems in the US at least, if you say something is good for you, it winds up everywhere in massive quantities. Remember the initial Quinoa boom? Quinoa cereals, buns, drinks, tablets, in pasta, salads, etc. I know it's a grain like wheat is omnipresent, but one day the supermarket shelves get loaded with it until the next health trend comes along - Acai this, Acai that, Avocado this, that, Olive oil, Matcha, Gingko, Ginseng (80s!), Almonds (to the point of overcultivation), etc... Nothing in moderation or common sense, but marketing overload, and the public literally eats it up. I can't even find full-fat yogurt that easy now. My local ShopRite has almost 95% low-fat, no-fat, yogurts on the shelves with 5% or full-fat yogurt, and supposedly fat is good again, it's sugar that's the main culprit for obesity and diabetes and other related diseases in the US. PS: Imagine trying to run a business in a litigious society where now 50% more people have food allergies to so many things that you need a mass spectrometer or other instrument to make bread to ensure it has what seems to be an undefined trace of one of many related food elements. Life has gotten ridiculous. [1] https://irp.nih.gov/blog/post/2023/05/digging-up-the-roots-of-food-allergies https://irp.nih.gov/blog/post/2023/05/digging-up-the-roots-o...
- 39896880 2y agoNothing that bakery makes can reasonably be labelled food.
- Animats 2y agoThe label for Wonder Bread indicates it doesn't have sesame seeds. If you stick to good old American white bread, no problem. It's the bakeries that produce that artisanal multi-grain hippie bread that have sesame all over the place.
- FerretFred 2y agoCynical me thinks it sounds like an attempt by Big Food to future-proof themselves against ingredients that may later be found to be an allergen. Have they considered that the plastic packaging they use might be shedding microplastics etc into the product. Er, loaf ?
- JoeAltmaier 2y agoIt was a good idea to start. List ingredients and warn of allergens! Very helpful. But a stray sesame seed gets into something and somebody gets a reaction and they sue. Essentially it went from "list allergens" to "If you don't list something, that's a hard promise it won't be in there" See the difference? You can be diligent about keeping allergens out, but bakeries are big places with lots of equipment being used for lots of things. They can be diligent and still occasionally something gets in there - a tiny seed, stuck by static electricity to a paddle etc. I suggest, to return some sanity to all this, that food preparers have a standard for diligence. If they meet it, then the occasional sesame seed is deemed a reasonable risk and to be understood. That civil cases can't be held limitlessly responsible for everybody's health.