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The Nashoba Brook Bakery in Concord, Mass. has recently become a target of the FDA, in part due to listing “love” as an ingredient in their granola. The targeting is a byproduct of aggressive federal regulation. We all want clean food and sanitary conditions in our local eateries. What we don’t want is the federal government getting worked up over benign branding.
In a recent statement from the FDA, the FDA took issue with the Concord bakery listing “love” as one of the ingredients. Love is not a common or usual name for any ingredients and as such it violated FDA requirements. The agency stated that they “have reviewed [Nashoba Brook Bakery’s] labels and identified violations of the food labeling regulations… which causes the products discussed below to be misbranded.”
Read the FDA letter here.
According to the co-owner of the bakery, Stuart Witt, “love” has been listed as an ingredient since the beginning of their 20-year history.
To be fair to the FDA, they also listed other issues such as failing to properly clean and sanitize their equipment. Some containers had “apparent dough residue inside and out, and [were] stacked inside one another.” The FDA also found “approximately five flies in the ready-to-eat cooling area and processing area of the facility.” Quick, call the feds!
My intent is not to downplay the presence of flies and one “approximately 1-inch long crawling insect” in the areas where food is served. Obviously, zero flies and no crawling insects are preferred. But when we get to the point where a federal agency is citing a small business for a couple bugs, we need to consider if that agency is stepping a bit far. Anyone who has worked a job knows that flies and bugs can get in. It doesn’t mean there was negligence. It means that there are bugs in the area and they get into buildings. I would hardly call a few bugs a cause for alarm.
The CEO of the bakery, John Gates, described this event in a way that most of us can sympathize with.
“It taps this feeling that a lot of Americans have that there are ways in which the government can overreach, and it seems kind of silly… Because it’s about the word love, it’s cathartic. … It makes it something that people can smile at.”
Perspectives
FDA: ‘Love’ is not a real ingredient in bakery’s granola
“‘Love’ is not a common or usual name of an ingredient, and is considered to be intervening material because it is not part of the common or usual name of the ingredient,” the FDA wrote.
The agency said in a statement Wednesday that listing “love” as an ingredient was just one of several violations, including a failure by the company to clean and sanitize its baking equipment and facility properly.
Bakery that listed “love” as ingredient is full of filth, bugs, violations | Ars Technica
The media seemed to savor the ostensibly heartless move by the stony federal agency. But chuckles aside, the FDA’s quibble over the ingredient list is a minor point in the letter. The rest of the warning lays out a disturbing and extensive list of sanitation violations by Nashoba. Together the violations paint a picture of a filthy, neglected facility—not a place where one would imagine things are lovingly baked.
FDA Has No Love for Nashoba Brook Bakery. Neither Do We | SnackSafely.com
There’s plenty not to “Love” about this story. Rather than be celebrated, Gates and Nashoba should be vilified for their negligent practices that put the food allergy community and the larger consumer community at risk.
Final Thoughts
As you’ve now seen from the other perspectives, not everyone views this issue as largely petty, as I do. However, I strongly encourage everyone to read the FDA’s statement itself and make your own decision. Were there some legitimate issues that need addressing? Absolutely, and they will be addressed by the business. But anyone who has dealt with a federal regulatory agency (or even filed taxes) knows how strict some of the guidelines are and even the most well-known companies in the country will get flagged or fined by a regulatory agency. There is a difference between a couple issues that we have all been guilty of and serious neglect resulting in fatal harm to people.
[I am especially aggrieved by the special snowflakes in the “allergy community” who want the federal government big daddy to be their personal complaint department and enforcer. I somehow believe that’s the source of this whole thing and it stinks like yesterday’s bread. If you don’t know what’s in something and you have severe allergies don’t buy it. Dont’ complain to the federal government. That’s how things got this bloated and out of control in the first place. –Ed.]
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