Allergens, and the notwithstanding clause

The nine

Milk, egg, fish, Crustacean shellfish, tree nuts, wheat, peanuts, soybeans and sesame, plus any food ingredient containing protein derived from one of them. Highly refined oils derived from them are excepted, as are ingredients exempt under the Act.

Wheat reaches most of this group

Specialty flours obviously, and then sprinkles, decor and some blends where wheat starch is a carrier. In a baking category the allergen question is not an edge case, it is the normal case.

The first permitted form

The word "Contains", followed by the name of the food source, printed immediately after or adjacent to the ingredient list, in a type size no smaller than the type size used in the ingredient list.

The second

The common or usual name of the allergen in the ingredient list followed in parentheses by the food source, except where the ingredient name already uses the food source name or the source appears elsewhere in the list.

Specific types for three of them

For a tree nut, fish or Crustacean shellfish, the food source name means the specific type of nut or species. So "tree nuts" alone is not the declaration; almond or pecan is.

And the notwithstanding clause

A flavoring, coloring or incidental additive that is, or bears or contains, a major food allergen is subject to these requirements notwithstanding the ingredient-list provisions or any other law. The compact declarations do not cover it.

Which makes supplier documentation the control

You cannot declare an allergen you do not know about, and the places it hides are precisely the bought blends. Asking every supplier, in writing, against the list of nine is the whole of the practice.

References