[Jochim]

My heart truly bleeds for companies who face the insurmountable task of printing "may contain sesame" next to the rest of their allergen information.

Wheat was already on the major allergens list, the regulatory burden of keeping aerosolised flour from contaminating other products doesn't seem to have been much of an issue.

The article also seems to make the case that sesame allergens were making their way into foods, with presumably disastrous effects but that was fine because companies didn't have to think about it.

The preferred solution to the intentional adulteration of products should be to fine the companies and throw their executives in jail. It might make them more amenable to complying with the spirit of the law. In fact, society would be better off in general if executives went to jail more often.

[SloopJon]

> My heart truly bleeds for companies who face the insurmountable task of printing "may contain sesame"

The reason the regulation, and the commercial response to it, is controversial is that companies cannot simply print "may contain sesame" and be done with it.

"Statements such as 'may contain [allergen]' ... can be used to address unavoidable 'cross-contact,' only if manufacturers ... have taken every precaution to avoid cross-contact"

https://www.fda.gov/food/food-labeling-nutrition/food-allerg...

This is a counter-intuitive, and presumably unintended consequence of the regulation that sucks if you're allergic, but fining or jailing executives for complying with it is silly. Hopefully, enough other companies will see a competitive advantage in retooling their processes to deliver sesame-free products.

[Jochim]

My mistake. They're simply required to do the same thing the do to ensure their enriched breads do not cross contaminate unenriched breads with milk and eggs, or that gluten free breads aren't contaminated with wheat flour.

> This is a counter-intuitive, and presumably unintended consequence of the regulation that sucks if you're allergic, but fining or jailing executives for complying with it is silly.

They're not complying, they're skirting. People who play these kinds of games are a weight around society's neck. The purposefulness and agency over their actions is what should see them in jail. See the attempts of past Uber executives to obstruct the investigation of their illegal activities for an egregious, and relatively well known example of people who need a stern lesson on how to behave in society.

[s1artibartfast]

I think you need to take a step back and get some perspective if you are calling for Bakers who add Sesame to their ingredients to be jailed.

There's no government compulsion to make sesame free products and should not be in a free Society.

[sgtnoodle]

My understanding is that the recent law does not allow for compliance by simply labeling possible contaminants. If the recipe does not intentionally include seseme, the product must not list seseme as an ingredient, and must not contain any seseme.

So, the insurmountable task is either maintaining completely seseme free manufacturing lines, or cleaning manufacturing lines between recipes to the point of guaranteeing no seseme cross-contamination.

Does it really follow that executives should be jailed for adding seseme to their company recipes? I imagine many of the companies that made this change were previously voluntarily listing seseme as a possible contaminant, but had to stop because of the law.

[Jochim]

> My understanding is that the recent law does not allow for compliance by simply labeling possible contaminants. If the recipe does not intentionally include seseme, the product must not list seseme as an ingredient

My mistake. Since 2004, Major food allergens have come with a requirement that manufacturers take steps to avoid cross contamination. The addition of sesame to the list requires it to be treated in the same way.

> and must not contain any seseme.

The manufacturer must follow "current good manufacturing practices (cGMPs)"[0] as described by the FDA. These should already be in place to prevent cross contamination of the existing major allergens.

> So, the insurmountable task is either maintaining completely seseme free manufacturing lines, or cleaning manufacturing lines between recipes to the point of guaranteeing no seseme cross-contamination.

The insurmountable task is to do the same thing they're already required to do to make sure enriched breads, containing milk and eggs, were not cross contaminating merely leavened products or to make sure that wheat flour doesn't contaminate non-wheat products.

> Does it really follow that executives should be jailed for adding seseme to their company recipes?

Yes. Any executive that added sesame to their product in response to this law should be in jail. I'm tired of executives facing no consequences when they intentionally cause harm in their pursuit of profit.

> I imagine many of the companies that made this change were previously voluntarily listing seseme as a possible contaminant, but had to stop because of the law.

Presumably part of the reason sesame was added as a major allergen was because companies weren't doing a great job disclosing it as an ingredient.

[0] https://www.fda.gov/media/80337/download