We hope you found some time to rest and recharge over the holiday season – and maybe even to do a bit of reading. Those quieter winter weeks offer our team some time to catch up on headlines we’ve been meaning to dig into, and one piece that recently caught our attention was the AP article, “New label law has unintended effect: Sesame in more foods.”
The issue illustrates a problem we hear about so frequently from food processors and food manufacturers: the increasing pressure to stringently account for allergens in your labels.
As of January 1, all foods made and sold in the U.S. must be labeled if they contain sesame, currently our country’s ninth major allergen. It all sounds simple enough to the layperson – and sounds like great news for families who are grappling with a sesame allergy – but the results haven’t been what advocates hoped for.
It won’t surprise food processors and food manufacturers like you, who are well versed in the challenges of avoiding cross-contamination with sesame, that determining which commodities need a “sesame” label isn’t straightforward.
Rather than assume the liability that comes attesting to the absence of any potential of cross-contamination, many food processors and food manufacturers are opting to slap the sesame label on their products almost indiscriminately – and some major food retailers are even adding small amounts of sesame flour to products in response to the law.
ParityFactory WMS & MES makes labeling and traceability much easier, which often eases our customers’ liability concerns. If the sesame labeling law is giving you a headache, let’s talk. We’d love to see how we can make things more manageable for you.
Read the article for yourself, and let us know how your team is responding to the new law.
