Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

FDA warns top U.S. bakery not to claim foods contain allergens when they don't

npr.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 605 posts

Re: FDA warns top U.S. bakery not to claim foods contain allergens when they don't

#21

Post by llamaimperative »

ganzuul wrote: post #10
JohnMakin wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is pretty funny, in a really sad way.

It's evil.

This 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.

Re: FDA warns top U.S. bakery not to claim foods contain allergens when they don't

#22

Post by Molitor5901 »

brookst wrote: post #13
isaacfrond wrote: post #2

It'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.

California 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.

My favorite is the Marriott in downtown Monterey. This building may contain substances which is known ... Utter crap.

Re: FDA warns top U.S. bakery not to claim foods contain allergens when they don't

#23

Post by gumby »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #3
isaacfrond wrote: post #2

It'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.

I 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.

This 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.

Re: FDA warns top U.S. bakery not to claim foods contain allergens when they don't

#25

Post by llamaimperative »

jokethrowaway wrote: post #7
isaacfrond wrote: post #2

It'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.

And 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

This 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.

Re: FDA warns top U.S. bakery not to claim foods contain allergens when they don't

#26

Post by ulyssys »

Molitor5901 wrote: post #19
isaacfrond wrote: post #2

It'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.

Now the FDA is saying adding those allergens on purpose is wrong. Figuratively, it's nuts. I suspect this will end up in court.

> Figuratively, it's nuts.

…and literally, it may or may not be nuts.

Re: FDA warns top U.S. bakery not to claim foods contain allergens when they don't

#27

Post by rdtsc »

So 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?

Re: FDA warns top U.S. bakery not to claim foods contain allergens when they don't

#28

Post by alwa »

edwinjm wrote: post #11

You can just label it as "might contain traces of X due to cross contamination". At least that's how they do it in Europe.

That 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-guidan....

Re: FDA warns top U.S. bakery not to claim foods contain allergens when they don't

#29

Post by utensil4778 »

Molitor5901 wrote: post #15

This 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 quantit…

This 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.

Re: FDA warns top U.S. bakery not to claim foods contain allergens when they don't

#30

Post by autoexec »

eulgro wrote: post #16

I 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".

Exactly 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.

Post reply on HN