The Allergens Hiding in Salt Blends

In the United States a seasoning label must name nine major allergens: the eight set by the Food Allergen Labeling and Consumer Protection Act of 2004 (milk, eggs, fish, crustacean shellfish, tree nuts, peanuts, wheat, soybeans) and sesame, added by the FASTER Act and required on labels from 1 January 2023. Anything outside those nine, including celery seed and mustard, can legally sit unnamed inside the word “spices”. And “may contain” statements are voluntary in the US, so a label without one tells you nothing about cross-contact.

Why a salt blend is an allergen question at all

Plain salt is almost never an allergen problem. The trouble starts when salt carries dried cheese, soy sauce powder, starch, seeds and spice, each from a supplier with its own allergen history. The survey of the category is in what seasoning salt actually is and salt blends around the world. This page asks only which of those ingredients the label must name.

The reasonable assumption is that a label discloses allergens. It discloses some, defined by statute, and the list depends on which side of the Atlantic printed it.

What US law requires on a seasoning label

FALCPA named eight foods as major allergens. The FASTER Act, signed on 23 April 2021, added sesame as the ninth, with labelling requirements effective 1 January 2023. The FDA allows two ways to declare them:

• In parentheses after the ingredient, as in “lecithin (soy)”.
• In a “Contains” statement placed immediately after or next to the ingredient list, as in “Contains wheat, milk, and soy”.

The parenthetical route matters for blends because it reaches inside the vague words. Spices and flavourings may be declared collectively as “spice” or “natural flavor”. That collective word cannot hide one of the nine: if milk is in the flavouring, the label has to say so, and on real panels it looks like “natural flavor (milk)”. One narrow exception applies: the FDA notes that the allergen rules do not cover highly refined oils.

Sesame: the ninth allergen, and why there is now more of it

Sesame is the newest name on the list and the one most likely to turn up in a salt blend. Gomashio is sesame and salt. Everything-bagel seasoning is built around it. Many furikake contain it.

McCormick’s Everything Bagel All Purpose Seasoning lists, in order: garlic, poppy seeds, salt, onion, sesame seed, sunflower oil & natural flavor, then “Contains: Sesame Seed.” Sesame is fifth by weight and visible in the jar, and it is still named twice. That is the law working as intended.

The law had a side effect nobody wanted. When it took effect, some bakeries found it cheaper to add a small amount of sesame flour to products and declare it than to clean their lines well enough to leave it off. The FDA said publicly that the practice “may make it more difficult for sesame-allergic consumers to find foods that are safe for them to consume – an outcome that the FDA does not support.” Nothing in the Act forbids adding a declared ingredient. The lesson for anyone reading labels is that last year’s sesame-free product can gain sesame without changing its name, and only the panel will tell you.

Where allergens actually sit in salt blends

Three routes are worth knowing.

Dairy in cheese salts and carriers

Lawry’s Hot Garlic Parmesan Seasoning lists garlic first and salt second, then parmesan cheese (part skim milk, cheese cultures, salt, enzymes), spices, cheddar cheese, onion, natural flavor (milk), butter (cream, salt), whey, citric acid, nonfat milk and garlic oil, ending with “Contains: Milk.” Milk appears in six separate places. The flavouring is the one a reader would miss, and it is the one the parenthetical rule exists for.

Milk also arrives without cheese: lactose is a common carrier in savoury seasonings, as the Aromat panel below shows.

Wheat in soy sauce powder and starch

Conventionally brewed soy sauce is made from soybeans and wheat. Dry it into a powder for a seasoning and the wheat comes along, so a blend with soy sauce powder normally carries two of the nine. Wheat starch is the other route.

Celery and mustard inside “spices”

This is the gap most readers do not know about. The US definition of spice, in 21 CFR 101.22, lists named examples, and among them are celery seed and mustard flour. Neither celery nor mustard is one of the nine US major allergens. So a US blend containing celery seed or mustard flour can lawfully declare it as “spices” and carry no allergen statement.

The Lawry’s panel above shows this. Its spices are listed as “spices (including paprika, celery seed, turmeric)”. Paprika and turmeric must be named or declared as “spice and coloring”, because they colour the food. Naming the celery seed was McCormick’s choice; another maker could print “spices” and be within the regulation.

Europe counts fourteen, and emphasises them in the list

EU Regulation 1169/2011 lists fourteen allergens in Annex II, and Article 21 requires them to be emphasised within the ingredient list by font, style or background colour. UK labels use the same list. The differences matter for seasoning.

Sulphites are the easiest row to misread. They are not one of the US nine, but US rules do not let a sulfiting agent drop off a label as an incidental additive once it is detectable in the finished food, defined as 10 parts per million or more. A US label will list them above that level. It will not flag them in a “Contains” line.

Aromat, read as a European label

Knorr Aromat is sold in Britain with this ingredient list: iodised salt, flavour enhancer (monosodium glutamate), lactose (MILK), WHEAT starch, yeast extract, onion powder (2.8%), salt, garlic powder, onion extract, turmeric, boletus edulis mushroom extract, spice extracts (CELERY seeds, clove), boletus luteus mushroom extract, bay leaf extract. It is followed by “May contain RYE, BARLEY, OAT, EGG, SOY and MUSTARD.”

Three things there are unfamiliar to a US reader. The allergens are emphasised in the list itself. Celery is flagged because the EU counts it. And the precautionary line names six allergens, three of them cereals the US would not name at all.

The same celery seed on a US label could appear as “spices”. Both labels would be lawful where sold. Only one tells a celery-allergic reader anything.

“May contain” is voluntary, and silence means nothing

The FDA’s position is plain. Advisory statements such as “may contain” or “produced in a facility that also processes” are not required by law. Where a company uses one, it must be truthful and not misleading, and it is not meant to substitute for proper manufacturing practice. Separately, the FDA requires facilities to have written procedures to control allergen cross-contact. The EU is in the same place: Article 36 of Regulation 1169/2011 treats information about possible unintentional presence of allergens as voluntary.

This is the thing most people get wrong. They read a missing “may contain” line as a statement of safety. It is not a statement of anything. A maker with rigorous cleaning may print a warning anyway; another with a shared line and no warning is equally within the rules. The line describes a labelling policy, not the jar.

That may change. The FDA held a public meeting on food allergen thresholds on 18 February 2026 and took written comments until 19 May 2026. A threshold system could eventually give precautionary labels a defined meaning. As of late September 2026 we have found no proposed rule, so a US “may contain” line still has no legal threshold behind it.

How to read a blend panel for allergens

• Read the whole ingredient list, not just the “Contains” line. The nine must appear in one or the other, but the list shows you where they are and how often.
• Treat “spices” and “natural flavor” as closed boxes for anything outside the nine. Celery seed and mustard can be inside them without being named. The only way to know is to ask the maker.
• Do not read meaning into a missing “may contain”. It is voluntary on both sides of the Atlantic.

This is a description of what the label is and is not required to say, not advice on managing an allergy. For the related question of what a supplier’s paperwork does and does not cover, see what a salt certificate actually covers.

What this means for the blends we are developing

We are developing seasoning blends; none is on sale. The allergen question for each is not only what goes in. It is whether every ingredient supplier can document its allergen status and cross-contact controls, and whether the packing site can support a statement that is true. Even a two-ingredient blend raises it; see garlic salt versus garlic powder.

A caveat on our sources: the three product panels quoted here were read from the makers’ own current web pages in September 2026, not from packs in hand. Formulas vary by market and change without notice, and the printed package, not the website, is the label that counts. The Aromat panel is the UK formula; other countries’ Aromat differs. The FDA comment on added sesame comes to us through Allergic Living’s reporting rather than an FDA page we could fetch directly.