Nuts Or No Nuts?

[grasscarp]

I have in my hand a Blueberry yogurt drink. On the side it says: Allergy advice.
Recipe: No nuts
Ingredients: Cannot guarantee nut free
Factory : No nuts.

So if the recipe has no nuts and the factory has no nuts, how can they not guarantee it is nut free? Where might these mystery nuts come from?

If I had a nut allergy I would have no idea whether I should be drinking it or not.

[Nibble]

perhaps they can't guarantee that there was not a weeny bit of nut in the container which brought the blueberries to the factory?

[excelsior-1]

that certainly does seem to be contradictory

[chrisgel]

I'd guess that they're covering themselves in case some of their "Bought in" materials contain traces od nuts. As they buy ingredients from other places they can't truthfully say no nuts.

[grasscarp]

Well nibble, in that case they should not say the factory has "No nuts". They should say we cannot guarantee the factory is nut free! And if the bit of nut that came in the blueberry container then gets into the product, the recipe also cannot say "no nuts" either. It is more accurately - cannot guarantee nut free.

[mrs_overall]

When the blueberries were picked they may have been stored in containers that may have previously contained something with nuts in.
They cannot guarantee that everyone involved in the process has not handled nuts. I guess they are just covering their backs in this age of litigation.

The story that made me laugh in the news last week was a firm that had to recall packets of nuts because they did not have the warning on saying "this product contains nuts."

[grasscarp]

I am sure they are covering themselves, but the advice is so confusing it is meaningless.

[Nibble]

Ah, but there can be "no nuts" in the recipe, truthfully, if it's not one of the intentionally added ingredients.

[heathfield]

You see exactly this on loads of food packaging. They're just covering themselves in case, as Nibble says, a teensy bit of nut finds its way into the product.

[Booldawg]

Its probably manufactured at a food factory not tied down to one product or company and does production runs on a contractor basis. They will often do processing runs for a product that contains nuts on an ad hoc basis.

[gness]

I react so badly that I can't kiss someone who has been eating peanuts.
Dead romantic on a first date..eh? When did you last eat a peanut? :-( x

[Old_Geezer]

The machinery occassionally breaks down so you may find the odd nut or bolt in your yogurt.

[mrs_overall]

Gness....you mean occasionally someone can get past the axe and kiss you????

[woofgang]

makes sense to me. The recipe does not contain nuts. They don't make either the yoghurt or any of the other components themselves though so they can't guarantee them to be nut free. The factory itself doesn't process recipes containing nuts.

[whiskeryron]

Could it actually be referring to the fact that all the factory workers are women ?.

WR.

[Mooria]

Manufacturers word it like this, so that consumer can basically do a risk assessment on the product. If there are no nuts used on site, then the risk of contamination is greatly reduced compared to if the site also manufactueres nut based products. Raw materials coming on site would be checked for nuts contents and as much controls put is place in possible, when bringing onto a nut free site, however it may be that they cannot completely guarentee all raw materials - the storgae in a container previously storing nuts. - the contamination risk although low, will be at the consumers descrection whether they want to risk eating it if they have a nut allergy. - unfortunalty it is all about covering the backs of the manufactuers as Mrs Overall states.

On the other nore that Mrs Overall states, on backs of peanuts it states that they may contain nuts are a peanut is not a nut but a legume and therefore you can be allergic to nuts and be able to eat peanuts and vice a versa.

[grasscarp]

Mooria - what an informative answer. Many thanks for your input.