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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

#331

Post by nindalf »

aiauthoritydev wrote: post #296
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…

The safest thing to do is to actually add the allergens to some degree and then warn people.

The article says that is precisely what they did and the FDA found that it violated the spirit of the law.

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

#332

Post by michaelt »

josefx wrote: post #303
NaOH wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There aren’t food prep areas when it comes to manufacturing at this scale. There are silos, storage tanks, essentially duct work to transport ingredients from bulk storage to production, and large-scale machinery which is designed to minimize exposure to the environment and people while in use. That’s putting aside the equipment and facilities used to acquire ingredients or store products after production. Yes, all o…

> There are silos, storage tanks, essentially duct work to transport ingredients from bulk storage to production How hard would it be to just have a set of sesam free plumbing for specific products? I mean they also manage to keep a separate sewage line, right??

I don't know about Bimbo Breads specifically, but I do know a lot of manufacturing plants will produce several products on the same production line, in batches.

A brewery that produces several types of beer would have separate fermentation tanks for each one - but might only have one bottling/canning line.

I wouldn't be surprised if bread manufacturing was similar - you might produce 8 different types of bread, but only have one bagging machine.

Of course the entire plant would be deep-cleaned once per day. But you'd be switching between products 8 times per day, so there's not time for an hour-long cleaning every time.

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

#333

Post by WA »

kevinventullo wrote: post #156
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…

Doesn’t this open up the market for a newcomer to make verified sesame-free bread?

Sure, although these products usually are A LOT more expensive. Same with gluten-free. That stuff costs 3-10x as much as non-gluten free food.

Case in point: Italy has a wheat-rich cuisine and they give up to 140€ per month to people with Celiac disease to offset the higher costs of gluten-free food:

https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2019/03/08/the-rise-and-r...

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

#334

Post by netmare »

tuukkah wrote: post #300
stoperaticless wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How? Forbid sesame seeds for everybody?

Not a bad idea actually. If some people can die of sesame seeds, the rest of us can manage without, sprinkle the seeds on our bread at home or bake our own bread if we can't live without sesame seeds.

If A can die from sesame seeds and B can't and the A-to-B ratio is something like 1:1e+6, doesn't it make more sense for A to bake their own bread instead?

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

#335

Post by daemin »

int3 wrote: post #114
jasinjames wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The number might be 0.2% for just sesame, but roughly 10% of Americans have some form of allergy[0]. I'm guessing the reasoning here is to attempt to prevent "allergen creep", where the endgame would be major manufacturers throwing their hands up and listing most products as possibly containing many allergens (or, as in this case, intentionally introducing unnecessary ingredients). If this were to happen, we would ex…

even if it were 10%, we shouldn't expect 90% of consumers to subsidize the other 10%

This sort of thought implies not believing in insurance of any kind. Why should people pay into a common fund when only a small percentage of them will ever use it.

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

#336

Post by KineticLensman »

lukan wrote: post #323
kragen wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

well, until now, bimbo's breads were sesame-free, and now they'll presumably have sesame in them. so people in the usa with sesame allergies will have to cook their own bread at home now, unless they're lucky enough to have access to a small artisanal bakery

"will have to cook their own bread at home now" Serious question as a non native english speaker, is this a correct way of saying it? I think bread is usually baked in an oven ..

Don’t know the actual stats but (UK here) lots of people who make bread at home use a dedicated bread machine

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

#337

Post by nottorp »

morsch wrote: post #260
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…

It's hilarious to me that it's just a given that bread is made in a factory-like setting as opposed to an actual bakery. They still exist, and some of them just make plain bread, which means they don't handle nuts. I'm sure their product is more expensive, but it's not clean room, vacuum chamber expensive. An ecosystem of centralized, mass production of baked goods is part of the problem, at least.

Out of curiosity, aren't there home use bread making machines in the US?

I used one for quite a while, even though I don't have any food allergies. I just stopped because I was eating too much fresh out of the oven bread.

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

#338

Post by JoeAltmaier »

nindalf wrote: post #331
aiauthoritydev wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The safest thing to do is to actually add the allergens to some degree and then warn people.

The article says that is precisely what they did and the FDA found that it violated the spirit of the law.

Or admit the law that was being applied was actually 'the law of unintended consequences'.

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

#339

Post by smohare »

lukan wrote: post #323
kragen wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

well, until now, bimbo's breads were sesame-free, and now they'll presumably have sesame in them. so people in the usa with sesame allergies will have to cook their own bread at home now, unless they're lucky enough to have access to a small artisanal bakery

"will have to cook their own bread at home now" Serious question as a non native english speaker, is this a correct way of saying it? I think bread is usually baked in an oven ..

Your intuition is right. One would say “will have to bake their own bread at home”.

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

#340

Post by ralferoo »

itronitron wrote: post #281
ajsnigrutin wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Usually those are labeled as "may contain traces of....".

Yeah, and that is just as bad as "contains... " for people that have severe allergies. The trend for most companies is just to put "may contain traces... " or "manufactured in a facility that also processes... " which will prevent me from buying from those manufacturers.

That's the intended objective. They don't want you buying the food if there's a potential risk you're going to later sue them if whatever minuscule probability of a contamination event does in fact happen to occur.

They have judged that as a market segment, the revenue they can get from selling guaranteed sesame free products is less than the cost of producing it. Other manufacturers may decide it's worth it if they price their bread higher, and then the issue becomes whether you are prepared to pay the price they are asking to cover the increase costs.

Remember at the end of the day, what you eat is a choice. There's no reason why you have to eat bread, but even if you choose to eat it, making the choice to buy more expensive hand-made bread rather than the ultra-processed mass-produced stuff is usually much better for your body in ways other than just not containing sesame.

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