Unintended Consequences of Allergen Food Labeling
24th May 2025
An estimated 6.2% of U.S. adults and 5.8% of U.S. children – more than 20 million people – have food allergies (Ng and Boersma, 2023; Zablotsky, Black, and Akinbami, 2023). For consumers with food allergies, labels indicating the presence of an allergen in a product can reduce information asymmetry and enhance the safety of purchasing decisions (Simons, et. al, 2005). For producers, however, ensuring that food products with and without major allergens are kept separated in production and distribution can be a significant challenge. The costs associated with mislabeling and cross-contamination, driven by costs of recalls and related civil litigation, can be large (Gupta et al., 2017). Indeed, the current most common reason for recalls of food products in the United States is the incorrect labeling of allergens (Gendel and Zhu, 2013).
For the last two decades, U.S. statutes have required that the presence of any of the “big eight” major allergens – milk, eggs, fish, crustacean shellfish, tree nuts, wheat, peanuts, and soybeans – be clearly labeled on the packaging of food products. Recently, new statutes required the inclusion of a ninth major allergen, sesame, first at a state level (2019) and later at the federal level (passed in 2021 and enacted in 2023).
Strikingly, media reports indicated that some food manufacturers began adding sesame to products that previously did not contain the ingredient following the implementation of the new allergen labeling requirements (Aleccia, 2022; Chatman, 2023; Hughes, et al., 2023). Statements from U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) officials also noted the prevalence of such unexpected responses by producers (Califf, 2023). To our knowledge, however, there has not yet been any systematic examination of food manufacturers’ responses to the regulatory change. To address this gap, we use ingredient label data to evaluate the timing and frequency of firm responses, thus illuminating some of the unintended consequences of the change in allergen labeling requirements for sesame.