Reality check (October 2012): Imperfect labeling in Trader Joe's. For non-Trader Joe's brands, you must contact the manufacturer. For Trader Joe's house brand: they use many manufacturers. They impose their GMP's on those sub-vendors for the house brand, and supposedly all follow the GMP's but only some of them actually have their procedures "certified" to meet some allergen safety requirement (I dont know what requirement yet). Unfortunately, their sub-vendors do not uniformly label for potential cross contamination. However, Trader Joe's does require them to disclose to Trader Joe's (even if not on their
label) whether the facility handles any of the top 8 allergens, and
whether the item is manufactured on shared equipment, and if on shared
equipment whether their cleaning procedures meet certified standards.
Trader Joe's has a hotline phone number where you can learn the
manufacturing/handling environment risks of any of their products.
What are the Allergen Labeling Standards for Trader Joe's Private Label Products? From the TJ website as of 6/4/12:
"As with all health and safety related issues, we take food
allergy concerns very seriously. We strive to ensure that all of our
Trader Joe's brand products are labeled with reliable, accurate, and
easy to read ingredient statements.
Trader Joe's strictly adheres to all Federal labeling
guidelines. You can be assured that if any of the top eight allergens
(milk, eggs, peanuts, tree nuts, fish, shellfish, wheat and soy) are
present in our private label products, they will be clearly labeled in
familiar terms in our ingredient statements [e.g. casein (milk)]. You
can also be certain that if "natural flavors" or "spices" contain any
components that are allergens or are derived from allergens, they will
be listed separately within the ingredient statement.
At our customers' request, we are including a "Contains"
statement on most of our labels. This statement is an at-a-glance tool
where Top 8 allergens present in the ingredients are clearly identified.
What this statement doesn't include (there is only so much room on the
label) is that all Trader Joe's private label suppliers follow Good
Manufacturing Practices (GMP's). We work closely with all of the
companies that manufacture our products and require that they are
vigilant about minimizing and monitoring any potential cross
contamination risk. Some of the steps taken to prevent cross
contamination include education and training of employees about
allergens, careful labeling and segregation of allergen ingredients,
cleaning of lines between production runs and stringent scheduling of
product runs. Manufacturers may even use alternate days to process
products that contain allergens from those products that do not.
We provide you with all of this information so you can feel confident
that you are making informed buying decisions. We want you to feel
safe, comfortable and thrilled by with the food choices you are making.
As manufacturers and ingredients can change, we strongly
encourage our customers to read ingredient information every time they
buy a Trader Joe's brand product (or any product, for that matter)."
