Comment by Jiro
4 years ago
The problem is that "may contain sesame" is not a legally valid excuse for containing sesame, but "does contain sesame" is. And the part about "may contain X" not being an excuse comes from existing precedent, not from the new law.
Right, in fact I’m not sure why the new law is even causing this. The interpretation of the labeling law which now includes sesame is that it only applies to intentional ingredients. As far as that’s concerned, no label at all is fine.
Separately, the good manufacturing practices rules say that cross contact risks should be limited. But the FDA mentions there may be some cases where this is impractical and a may contain label “might” be acceptable. They don’t say what those are, and they don’t explicitly require a label either, because that is not a labeling law.
So consumers can’t really be sure if cross contact is a risk or not.
The new law could presumably have changed that, though. (And it does seem like something of an absurd precedent to me.)