FDA Allergen Labeling

Can one include allergens other than FDA eight major food allergen in CONTAINS statement?

If you are speaking about an ingredient that is listed as an allergen in another country (Canada actually has 11) then it's probably a good idea for transparency to your customer

 

In this document.........https://www.fda.gov/...n/UCM265446.pdf             I cannot find a reason why legally you could not do this

 

You could always "ask Karen"

 

https://askkaren.gov/

Thank you @scampi.

askfsis for usda regulation questions - askKaren for consumer questions  

The FDA has a number but I'm guessing you'd be on the phone along time. I would contact someone at the Food Allergy Research and Resource Program (FARRP). https://farrp.unl.edu/contactfarrp - they might not know the answer but I bet they could steer you in the right direction.

Or you could try a lab that does nutritional analysis.............MAXXAM does out and they SHOULD be up to date with current labeling laws

Can one include allergens other than FDA eight major food allergen in CONTAINS statement?

 

Hi kick,

 

Is there a specific reason for yr query ? , eg yr product has a rare but highly allergenic component ?

Hi Charles,
There is no specific reason..Just out of curiosity, I wanted to know..
As regional allergens are generally mentioned in ingredient statement only..So, is Contains statement restricted to eight major allergen only?
Or companies can declare other allergen as well in there..?

If you 100% do not ship outside of the USA, then sticking with the 8 would be all you need

 

However, between some countries (Canada and the US) the allergen labeling isn't the same, but it makes more $$ sense to have only 1 label instead of two (Canada has 11 allergens) that way the label meets both countries labeling regulations

@ scampi, So that means companies seeling product solely in US, can not declare other than major food allergen in contains statement.is that so ?
I just want to know exactly what FDA says.. do they give relaxation or contains is limited to major food allergen only.

Not sure if your realize this or not but the contains statement in the US is optional. Companies can instead make sure the common name of the allergen (in parenthesis) is in the list of ingredients. If companies do use the contains statement, they must list all of their allergens in the product in it.  I don't see anywhere in the guidelines that specifically says you can't state more. A question would be, why would you - that would take up more space in the label where space can be limited while adding more items can lead to more errors.

 

I recommend that you ask the FDA personally to get a definite answer.