‘May Contain’ Labels on Products

Ever picked up a product that was seemingly vegan, flipped it over to see the ingredients and seen a statement like “may contain milk”? What does this mean? It can be confusing for newer vegans or those who are transitioning to a vegan diet. May contain statements on products can be listed as:

• May contain …
• Made on shared equipment with …
• Produced in the same facility as …
• May contain traces of …
• Manufactured in the same facility as products containing …

Companies can choose to add these labels or not, and they can choose to word them however they want. “May contain” statements are a manufacturer’s warning that the product might have been somewhere in the vicinity of another product that contains the allergen noted at some time during the production process. They are not stating that the ingredient is in the product. For caution, it’s the manufacturer’s way of signaling that there is some degree of risk for cross-contamination, due to proximity with that particular allergen. So ‘may contain’ tags are especially crucial for people who suffer from potentially life-threatening allergies.

Manufacturers often share processing facilities for economic reasons. When a label says “may contain milk,” (or other allergen like wheat, soy, eggs etc) that means the manufacturer produced that product in the same factory or on the same machines as other products that contain milk. All equipment gets thoroughly cleaned and sanitized between jobs. However, because a manufacturer can never guarantee 100%, their products have to carry these cross-contamination cautions. Some allergy sufferers are so sensitive to even the slightest amounts of an allergen being present in their food and that is why these warnings are crucial to them. “May contain” labels, such as this one, are more about allergens than vegan and non-vegan ingredients.

For vegans, we qualify the ingredients used to make the product, not by cross-contamination. The production of a food product goes through so many stages from farms to transport to holding faciltities to processing plants to packaging etc – so it would be almost impossible to find out which part of the system exposed the product to an allergen. If we were so militant about it, we would never be able to eat at restaurants or buy from supermarkets! Many of the vegan products on the market, especially smaller brands, don’t have the economic means to own a manufacturing plant so they would use shared equipment. Additionally, large non-vegan brands have vegan product lines and the products are most likely made on shared equipment. The chance of them actually containing milk (or another allergen) is very low, and you will not be helping the animals or the vegan movement by boycotting these products.