The allergen statement: declaring the Big 9

US law requires packaged food to declare the nine major allergens in plain English: milk, eggs, fish, crustacean shellfish, tree nuts, peanuts, wheat, soybeans, and sesame (sesame became the ninth in 2023 under the FASTER Act). This applies to every packaged food, cottage-food sellers included in nearly every state, and it's the food-label rule with the highest stakes: allergen mistakes are the #1 cause of US food recalls.

The two legal ways to declare

1. In the ingredient list, with the allergen source in parentheses: “Enriched flour (wheat), whey (milk), lecithin (soy)”. If every allergen source is already plain in the list, no separate statement is required.
2. A “Contains” statement immediately after or adjacent to the ingredient list: “Contains: Wheat, Milk, Soy.” This is what most small makers use. It's clearer for customers and easier to keep correct.

Details that trip people up

• Name the species for fish, shellfish, and tree nuts — and name it on its own. 21 U.S.C. 343(w)(2) makes the required name “the name of the specific type of nut or species of fish or Crustacean shellfish”, and FDA is explicit that the ingredient list or Contains statement “cannot broadly declare ‘tree nuts,’ ‘fish,’ or ‘Crustacean shellfish’”. So write “Contains: Almonds, Pecans” and “Contains: Cod”. Leading with the category, as in “Tree Nuts (Almonds)”, is the form the statute rules out.
• Sub-ingredients count. If your chocolate chips contain soy lecithin, your cookie contains soy. Trace every purchased ingredient's own label.
• Coconut: the FDA classifies coconut as a tree nut for allergen-declaration purposes. Declare it when in doubt.
• “May contain” is voluntary. Advisory cross-contact statements aren't a legal substitute for good manufacturing practices, and they never replace a required “Contains” declaration for an actual ingredient.
• Gluten-free is a claim, not an allergen declaration. It has its own rule (under 20 ppm gluten) and its own liability.

Example, done right

INGREDIENTS: Rolled oats, honey, almond butter (almonds), chocolate chips (sugar, chocolate liquor, cocoa butter, soy lecithin), sea salt.
Contains: Almonds, Soy.