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

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

#201

Post by seanmcdirmid »

maxerickson wrote: post #198
lpolovets wrote: post #117

My understanding is this allergen over-labeling was inspired by the FDA in the first place. 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 o…

They are saying to play by the spirit of the rules instead of working the ref on the letter of the rules. But businesses could give a fuck about anything other than their current margin. Putting it another way, the FDA put forth a regulation intended to make the lives of a certain group of people better, and the response was to figure out how to not bother with that.

If producer A just puts sesame in their products, and that means they can undercut producer B who spends the money to comply with the spirit of the regulation, producer B goes out of business because their expenses are higher.

So what do you expect would happen? Consumers like cheaper rather than higher prices, this isn't a new thing.

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

#202

Post by causality0 »

maxerickson wrote: post #198
lpolovets wrote: post #117

My understanding is this allergen over-labeling was inspired by the FDA in the first place. 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 o…

They are saying to play by the spirit of the rules instead of working the ref on the letter of the rules. But businesses could give a fuck about anything other than their current margin. Putting it another way, the FDA put forth a regulation intended to make the lives of a certain group of people better, and the response was to figure out how to not bother with that.

You have a legal duty to not poison people by telling them there aren't allergens in their food when there might be. You don't have a legal duty to create a hypoallergenic product line. Regulations exist to protect your rights, not make your shopping experience more convenient.

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

#203

Post by inferiorhuman »

Molitor5901 wrote: post #97
inferiorhuman wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The common denominator here is that the government gives companies new rules to follow, and enforces severe penalties for breaking them, and so the companies minimized their risk by following them to the extreme. Hardly. Prop 65 initially contained minimal guidance and essentially no teeth. So rather than identify problematic chemicals companies just slapped generic Prop 65 warnings on everything. architecting these…

Prop 65 DOES contain teeth, of the worst possible kind. It works by an attorney finding a product without a Prop 65 label. Then the law firm sends a demand to the state that the product have the Prop 65 label. If the state does not take action, then the law firm may take private action by suing the company to force them to have the label, and get all of their legal expenses paid for by the state. It's lead to an enti…

Can't tell if you're serious or not. Private complaints must be reviewed by the local AHJ and include a certificate of merit. Folks being sued privately have 2 weeks to add labels. This is, of course, after waiting 2 months for the government to take action.

Hardly the worst kind of teeth.

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

#204

Post by moregrist »

AnotherGoodName wrote: post #136
forgetfreeman wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, 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…

Hmm 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…

As a parent of a child with a severe sesame allergy, you clearly don’t understand food allergies and how severe they can be.

If my child ingests sesame, they go into anaphylactic shock and without an epipen administered in minutes they will die.

There are definitely questions of how to best inform consumers that have severe food allergies. But I’ve been really underwhelmed with the dialog here on this.

It would be lovely if HN could keep in mind that for some people, sesame is a life-threatening ingredient. And those people would also like to safely buy bread.

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

#205

Post by [deleted] »

utensil4778 wrote: post #29
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 con…

[deleted]

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

#206

Post by kgwgk »

CoastalCoder wrote: post #194
rufus_foreman wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 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 cl…

> The only way to fix cross-contamination issues is to have a different production facility for every possible combination of allergens. I don't think that's right. You don't necessarily need all 2^n kinds of facilities, because there might not be a commercial demand for products needing every one of those combos.

One may read "for every possible combination of allergens" as "for every combination of allergens present in the range of products being manufactured".

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

#207

Post by maxerickson »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #201
maxerickson wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are saying to play by the spirit of the rules instead of working the ref on the letter of the rules. But businesses could give a fuck about anything other than their current margin. Putting it another way, the FDA put forth a regulation intended to make the lives of a certain group of people better, and the response was to figure out how to not bother with that.

If producer A just puts sesame in their products, and that means they can undercut producer B who spends the money to comply with the spirit of the regulation, producer B goes out of business because their expenses are higher. So what do you expect would happen? Consumers like cheaper rather than higher prices, this isn't a new thing.

I totally expect people to be assholes about it, don't worry. That's what I'm getting at, people are assholes.

Should we be proud and happy about that? Apparently.

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

#208

Post by alwa »

zeroonetwothree wrote: post #174
betaby wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. That market is too small to target. Overregulation is affecting consumer choices.

There are many small bakeries that offer a variety of options. It seems silly to confidently assert this as you do.

That seems like a sensible point to me. At some level, let the Bimbos of the world have the sesame-agnostic mass market—that only strengthens the case for niche competitors who serve this specific market.

If sesame is in fact poison for a specific subgroup, this shifts the mass market option from “eh it’s probably fine, how often does cross-contamination happen” to “definitely poison for me, I’d better seek an alternative.”

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

#209

Post by maxerickson »

causality0 wrote: post #202
maxerickson wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are saying to play by the spirit of the rules instead of working the ref on the letter of the rules. But businesses could give a fuck about anything other than their current margin. Putting it another way, the FDA put forth a regulation intended to make the lives of a certain group of people better, and the response was to figure out how to not bother with that.

You have a legal duty to not poison people by telling them there aren't allergens in their food when there might be. You don't have a legal duty to create a hypoallergenic product line. Regulations exist to protect your rights, not make your shopping experience more convenient.

Oh, great, people are living up to their legal duty, I'm so proud of them and totally won't think they don't give a shit about other people if they do the cheapest thing that satisfies the regulation.

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

#210

Post by lisper »

moregrist wrote: post #204
AnotherGoodName wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm 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…

As a parent of a child with a severe sesame allergy, you clearly don’t understand food allergies and how severe they can be. If my child ingests sesame, they go into anaphylactic shock and without an epipen administered in minutes they will die. There are definitely questions of how to best inform consumers that have severe food allergies. But I’ve been really underwhelmed with the dialog here on this. It would be lo…

> If my child ingests sesame, they go into anaphylactic shock and without an epipen administered in minutes they will die.

Please excuse my skepticism, I am asking this out of a genuine desire to become better informed: how can you possibly know this? Unless you happened to have an epi-pen handy the first time your kid ever ate a sesame seed, which seems unlikely, then if this were true would not your kid have died then and there?

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