Comment by chomp

That’s what this is about. Food producers are allowed to comply with a “may contain X” statement, or adding it to the list of ingredients. Previously, sesame was allowed to exist under “spice” or “natural flavors”. Now, there’s an explosion of “may contain sesame”, probably due to the difficulty of tracing sesame through their supply chain, and it may honestly be everywhere. For example I think if buns are cooked in the same facility as sesame buns, you gotta either add it and include it (which is what’s happening now) or create a lot of controls to ensure no cross contamination, and bakers may not be set up for separate cook areas, etc.)