A WORD OF WARNING ABOUT SAINSBURY'S OWN BRAND PRODUCT LABELING

[Chandra]

A word of warning about Sainsbury's own brand products labeling:

Products may contain MORE allergy inducing ingredients than those described in the label

DS had a strong reaction to Sainsbury's' own Baked Beans and Sausages a couple weeks ago after accidentally having some at nursery. I checked the label and there was nothing there that can justify such reaction in DS apart from something that was described as "flavourings". I rang their customer service and, though very helpful, told me they could not give me the details of those flavourings because they had to protect their formulas from their competition. So after some negociating I give them the list of foods that DS is allergic to to see if they could find the item in their secret flavourings.

They come back to me saying about the tomato sauce of the beans containing MILK. DS is very allergic to milk but has never had a reaction of that kind or strenght after having it, so I assume there's another "secret ingredient" there that we are not aware DS is allergic to. However, I thought it was very important for you, who have or have children with severe allergies to milk to know about it.

Hope that helps, I don't know how to pass this information to more mothers of allergic children than those in Mumsnet, but if you know how to, please pass the word.

are you allowed to do that - with hold info on ingredients?

thanks for the info

Thanks.

sorry are they allowed

Surely thats illegal

luckily none of my kids have allergies but i cannot believe they are allowed to get away with that! have you complained to the food standards agency or trading standards?

Am I right in thinking that if the ingredient makes up less than a certain percentage of the product, there is no legal obligation to state it on the label, even if it's peanuts or similar? Can't remember the percentage, but obviously even 1% of some ingredients could be very serious for some sufferers.

is it Sainsburys baked beans in tomato sauce with pork sausages?

is so, that has 'contains milk' on it

actually it says 'contains milk and wheat' to be specific

The little tins of heinz beans and sausages are safe for milk and gluten if you wanted an alternative.

No, it doesn't say that it contains milk, that's the main problem.

which one have you got? has it got a mainly white label (the economy one) or an orange one?

(just wondering why mine says it does have milk whereas yours doesn't!)

Actually, although DS is much better with better quality products than supermarket's own brand, we have noticed that, when he was coming out of his allergy to tomato, the worst allergy reactions came always from Heinz tomato products, so I guess just another company with its own "secret" and not very healthy flavourings.

White label (also annoyed at nursery cutting costs using the lesser quality products! )

aaah, I have the orange one. In fact, the economy brand doesn't appear to have as full a label details as the orange brand (I've noticed that in other products) so have always steered clear of it - I think that economy one has wheat and gluten but not milk (from memory - dd was milk allergic) if it's that 'Sainsburys beans and sausages, basics' one.

Poor ds.

sorry Chandra, just read that back and I sound a bit smug - don't mean to at all and it's dreadful when potential allergens aren't labelled especially when Sainsburys is normally so good at that sort of thing.

i once bought some baby food for dd2 there, years ago now. other jars hadegg/gluten/milk free but one jar didnt state it was egg free. so i checked the ingrediants, no egg listed. was very confused, so didnt give it to dd2.

franny is right but the labelling laws are due to change very soon (thank you EEC, our government wouldn't have done it without you) and most companies are already beginning to change labels. However they still have older stock on the shelves.

We had a problem with heinz soup once and again they wouldn't tell us what was in it. When we said she was OK with a different one they were prepared to say the only difference was onion powder. I suspect it was a cross contamination problem though.

Best way to tell people with serious allergies is to contact the anaphylaxis campaign. They won't always send out a mailing, depends on how serious they think the risk is, but if they don't mail people they may put it in their next newsletter.

Recommend joining the campaign to anyone with severe allergies because you do get mailings when there is a high risk. Companies like Sainsburys will often pay for the camapign to mail all the milk allergic people.

In NZ they have to declare any of the main 8 allergens, even if it's a secret formula, even if it's under 1%. I'm not keen on the term flavour - but at least I can work out from the labelling if it's egg!

Fast food is subject to same laws, but bloody KFC won't provide details of their secret recipe, and so they just don't appear as a brand in the allergy free lists.

Was impressed that McDonalds have put a big sign over the McNuggets meal in NZ. Saying "100% breastmeat, coating now contains dairy products from milk."

I avoid anything with unspecified "flavourings" because it usually means Lactose.
I'm not sure what flavour this adds to all these foods, and suspect it's just a cheap bulking agent.
The sooner all foods have full listings of ingredients, and preferably allergy advice, the better!

Bobbybob, I was also very impressed by Mc Donalds, they have a table printed in the back of the paper used in their trays, specifying which "parts" of their products have any of the main allergens (so you can see that the meat of one product is fine while the bun of another is not). I wish more chain restaurants took that kind of measure. Not that I visit Mc Donalds often though but it has been a good emergency stop when you find yourself without more home made snacks in a country where you have no clue about what is included in the ingredients.

I will write to the Anaphylactic campaing. I have to say that the girl from Sainsbury's was highly appologetic (even a bit scared), I wonder if she thought I was going to sue the company....

Tatt, I'm not quite sure how reliable the labelling will be in many European countries, here in the UK people is very serious about allergies because there is a major incidence of life threatening reactions, while over there I believe the risk of cross contamination may not be taken as seriously. Life threatening allergies are mostly unheard of in many countries

Just wanted to add that McDonalds website has an allergen table that specifies which allergen applies to which foods. Also includes sulphites I think. I wrote to KFC and they sent me out their info. Everything contains egg right down to the potato and gravy. The only thing that didn't were the chips.

....and then... most chips have milk powder! nightmare!

Oh crikey - the other day I nearly gave ds some potato and gravy, but then thought it probably had food colouring to make the gravy brown and didn't. Thank goodness.

Makes me sound like a fast food freak . Just have to add have two older children without allergies that have attended parties etc.