A top U.S. commercial bakery is pushing back on a Food and Drug Administration warning to stop using labels that say its products contain sesame — a potentially dangerous allergen — when they don't.
Bimbo Bakeries USA, which includes brands such as Sarah Lee, Entenmann's and Ball Park buns and rolls, appears to be defying an FDA warning sent in June that said the several of the company's products are “misbranded” because the labels list sesame or tree nuts even though those ingredients aren't in the foods.
In a response to the FDA, Bimbo officials said they wouldn't change their sesame labeling. The company said it creates “nationally uniform labels" that prevent people from inadvertently eating foods that can trigger potentially life-threatening reactions. The firm said it was not attempting to avoid legal requirements to avoid cross-contamination in plants.
“We think our approach is the most protective of sesame-allergic consumers,” the company wrote in a July 1 letter obtained by the advocacy group Center for Science in the Public Interest and shared with The Associated Press.
Bimbo officials confirmed their position in an email to the AP on Wednesday, calling it a “conservative approach” for consistent labeling of nationally distributed products.
FDA officials did not immediately comment on the company's response. By law, the agency can take actions ranging from recalls to civil fines and criminal charges against firms that fail to heed warning letters.
But CSPI and other food safety advocates said the standoff continues a practice that misleads the estimated 33 million Americans with food allergies and results in limited choices for the more than 1.6 million who are allergic to sesame.
"We depend on accurate food labeling to feel safe," said Sung Poblete, chief executive of the nonprofit group FARE, Food Allergy Research & Education. “We depend on accurate labeling to make the food choices that we make.”
The impasse follows a 2023 federal law that requires that all foods made and sold in the U.S. to be labeled if they contain sesame.
Bimbo Bakeries, which bills itself as the nation's largest commercial baking company, was among several food producers and restaurant chains that began adding small amounts of sesame to foods that didn't have it previously — and then listing it as an ingredient.
Several companies said they did that because it was too difficult and expensive to keep sesame used in one part of a baking plant out of another and they wanted to avoid liability and cost. The FDA has said that such actions are legal, although they violate the spirit of the law.
In its response to the FDA, Bimbo said it has plants where some products are made with sesame and some are not. But when it came to labeling, the company said that the most “protective approach" for consumers was to declare sesame as an ingredient and use the same packaging for all of the products.
However, Bimbo officials told the agency they did change labels for certain breads that said they included tree nuts when they did not. The new labels now say the breads include hazelnut, the only nut used in the products, the company indicated.
CSPI had petitioned FDA in 2023 to halt the practice of adding sesame to foods to prevent risks of cross-contamination. It's not clear what action the agency will take over Bimbo's refusal to heed a warning letter, said Sarah Sorscher, CSPI's director of regulatory affairs.
“It's so unusual to see a big company like Bimbo calling the FDA's bluff,” she added.
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
FILE - Bimbo bread is displayed on a shelf of a supermarket in Anaheim, Calif., on April 24, 2003. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes, Files)
Hurricane Milton dropped to a Category 4 early Wednesday as it churns toward Florida's west coast. The National Hurricane Center had predicted it would likely weaken, but remain a major hurricane when it makes landfall late Wednesday or early Thursday.
The Tampa Bay area, home to more than 3.3 million people, faced the possibility of widespread destruction after avoiding direct hits from major hurricanes for more than a century.
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Here’s the latest:
Tropical storm warnings were issued as far north as Savannah, roughly 200 miles from the projected path of the hurricane’s center.
Storm surge of 2 to 4 feet was forecast for Georgia communities including St. Simons Island, home to nearly 16,000 people, and Tybee Island, which has population of 3,100. Wind gusts of up to 45 mph could break off large tree limbs, topple shallow-rooted trees and cause scattered power outages, according to the National Weather Service.
Gov. Ron DeSantis said to people choosing to remain home on barrier islands, “just know that if you get 10 feet of storm surge, you can’t just hunker down with that.”
“If you’re on the southern part of this storm, you are going to get storm surge,” DeSantis said.
“It’s churning massive amounts of water, and that water is going to come out,” he added. “Man, if you’re anywhere in the eye or south, you are going to get major storm surge.”
And it will remain closed Thursday, according to a statement on the airport’s website.
“We plan to resume operations on Friday, Oct. 11, but that will depend on a damage assessment and staffing,” the statement said.
The closing includes the airport terminal, car rental agencies and parking facilities.
“Florida will not stand for looting — we will not stand for it. We will come after you,” said Mark Glass, commissioner of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.
The models were developed before the storm, with plans specific to various parts of the state, said Kevin Guthrie, executive director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management.
The plans will be used to project where the most damage will likely be, based on the hurricane’s last position and movement at landfall, he said.
That includes 6,000 Florida National Guard members and 3,000 members of the National Guard from other states.
“This is the largest Florida National Guard search and rescue mobilization in the entire history of the state of Florida,” he said during a Wednesday morning briefing.
There are 31,000 people in shelters and there’s room for nearly 200,000 people, “so there is space available in these shelters,” he said.
The National Weather Service in Miami posted a photo on the social platform X of the funnel crossing the highway Wednesday morning with the words: “TORNADO crossing I-75 as we speak! Seek shelter NOW!”
“The roads and the interstates, they are flowing,” he said, but added that traffic conditions could deteriorate as the day goes on Wednesday.
But in a Wednesday morning briefing, the governor said highway patrol cars with sirens are escorting gasoline tanker trucks to get them through traffic to refill the supply.
“And they are continuing with the fuel escorts as we speak,” he said.
In the Port Charlotte area, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) southeast of Tampa, officials said water pressure would be lowered Wednesday morning.
Utility operations for Charlotte County also would be suspended at noon. Officials said on the county’s webpage that storm surge and heavy rainfall will inundate the sewer system, making it difficult for wastewater to flow properly.
Milton is expected to make landfall on Florida’s Gulf Coast late Wednesday or early Thursday.
“We must be prepared for a major, major impact to the west coast of Florida,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Tuesday.
As of Wednesday morning, the storm was about 210 miles (340 kilometers) southwest of Tampa and moving northeast at 16 mph (26 kph).
But there were no immediate strong winds. Most businesses were closed as people finished storm preparations and got to the location where they’ll ride out the storm.
They’re also providing other key information, such as shelter locations. On Wednesday morning, Pinellas County sent people text messages, emails and direct cellphone calls to warn of the dangers. Similar methods are used in neighboring Hillsborough County and other locations.
“This is it, folks,” Emergency Management Director Cathie Perkins said at a Wednesday morning news conference. “Those of you who were punched during Hurricane Helene, this is going to be a knockout. You need to get out and you need to get out now.”
Perkins said 13 public shelters are open for people with no other option to escape the storm and that major bridges around Tampa Bay would begin closing in the afternoon. Perkins also said people should not feel a sense of relief because of indications Milton might come ashore south of Tampa.
“Everybody in Tampa Bay should assume we are going to be ground zero.,” she said.
Human-caused climate change boosted a devastating Hurricane Helene ’s rainfall by about 10% and intensified its winds by about 11%, scientists said in a new flash study released just as a strengthening Hurricane Milton threatens the Florida coast less than two weeks later.
The warming climate boosted Helene’s wind speeds by about 13 mph (21 kph), and made the high sea temperatures that fueled the storm 200 to 500 times more likely, World Weather Attribution calculated Wednesday from Europe. Ocean temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico were about 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius) above average, WWA said.
“Hurricane Helene and the storms that were happening in the region anyway have all been amplified by the fact that the air is warmer and can hold more moisture, which meant that the rainfall totals — which, even without climate change, would have been incredibly high given the circumstances — were even higher,” Ben Clarke, a study co-author and a climate researcher at Imperial College London, said in an interview.
Milton will likely be similarly juiced, the authors said.
The scientists warned that continued burning of fossil fuels will lead to more hurricanes like Helene, with “unimaginable” floods well inland, not just on coasts. Many of those who died in Helene fell victim to massive inland flooding, rather than high winds.
▶ Read more about the effects of climate change on hurricanes.
In Charlotte Harbor, about two blocks from the water, Josh Parks spent Wednesday morning packing his Kia sedan with his clothes and other belongings from his small triplex apartment.
The clouds were swirling and the winds had begun to gust. Two weeks ago, Helene’s surge brought about 5 feet (1.5 meters) of water to the neighborhood, its streets still filled with waterlogged furniture, torn out drywall and other debris.
“It’s a ghost town around here,” said Parks, an auto technician.
His roommate had already fled and Parks wasn’t sure when he would be back.
“I told her to pack like you aren’t coming back,” said Parks, who was fleeing to his daughter’s inland home.
Law enforcement vehicles blocked the bridge from the mainland to the barrier island of St. Pete Beach on Wednesday morning, where as of Tuesday evening, officials had closed down access to this string of low-lying barrier islands that jut out into the Gulf.
All residents in these low-lying communities west of the city of St. Petersburg are under mandatory evacuation orders, as another storm bears down less than two weeks after Hurricane Helene killed 12 people in the Tampa Bay area, including residents who didn’t leave – and then drowned in their homes.
At a park bench on the side of the road that cuts through the small island of Deadman Key, plastic bags stuffed with clothes and a shopping cart full of someone’s personal belongings sat in the blowing rain, seemingly abandoned by its owner ahead of Hurricane Milton’s expected impact.
Three boats were already dashed against a low-lying seawall and under a bridge, apparently casualties from Helene, which sent deadly storm surge into scores of homes in Pinellas County, even as the eye of that storm stayed 100 miles (160 kilometers) offshore from this stretch of the coast.
Officials are warning that a direct hit from Hurricane Milton would bring far greater risks to this part of the state.
The National Weather Service on Wednesday morning issued the watch, which includes a vast part of Florida, including the Tampa area, the Florida Keys and Miami-Dade County.
“We’ve seen a lot of questions about, ‘well I live on a creek,’ or ‘I live on a river, is it really going to get 10 to 15 feet where I live?,’” Sarasota County Emergency Management Chief Sandra Tapfumaneyi said in a briefing early Wednesday.
“That storm surge is going to start at 10 or 15 feet near the coastline and then it’s going to travel,” she said. “And storm surge likes to go on the path of least resistance. So those of you that live near a river, that live near a creek, those river banks, their water will come up.”
“We do not want you staying in your home if you’re anywhere near a body of water,” Tapfumaneyi said.
“This is going to be an intense disaster for Sarasota County,” she added. “Evacuate now if you have not done so already.”
Boards on the window of a store display a message ahead of the arrival of Hurricane Milton, in Bradenton Beach on Anna Maria Island, Fla., Tuesday, Oct. 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)
Members of the Florida Army National Guard stage on a beach as they prepare for the arrival of Hurricane Milton, in Bradenton Beach on Anna Maria Island, Fla., Tuesday, Oct. 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)
A boarded up business stands beside a deserted street in an evacuation zone, ahead of the arrival of Hurricane Milton, in Anna Maria, Fla., on Anna Maria Island, Tuesday, Oct. 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)
