Item — HN Reader

> I've looked into this, and it seems pretty much down to the retail vs. commercial packaging and the assorted supply chains. Both the packaging materials themselves, as well as the plant capacity to pack a bunch of 5lb bags of flour vs. giant 50 or 100lb bags a baker would pick up. I'm sure FDA labeling requirements/etc. are likely different as well so it's not quite as simple as "find a few trucks worth of burlap bags".

Yep. I own a bakery. My big-name ingredient supplier doesn't carry the flour brands commonly seen in supermarkets, and the same is true in reverse. Likewise, the flour I buy doesn't include the labeling seen with retail products, like a nutritional panel. If I want the detailed information a manufacturer offers I request that from my supplier or the manufacturer. As an example, I was looking into a new source for one ingredient recently (malted barley flour), and the sales representative also gave me all the secondary documents (total of 70 pages):

Food Safety Audit Report

Certificate of Conformity

Material Safety Data Sheet

Certificate of Analysis

Kosher Certification

Technical Data Sheet

Corporate Certificate of Liability Insurance

Product Guarantee

Product Specifications Sheet

1 comments

How might a regular consumer like me get this ingredient information, if I wanted to find out where my food comes from?

In the US (and Europe, too, I believe) food manufacturers are increasingly mandated to be able to trace their ingredients back to the original source. Each handler along the way is expected to do this, so theoretically there's a paper trail from the beginning to the end on a store shelf.

If there are particular foods for which you'd like this information, I would check company websites and then reach out to producers if that isn't getting the information you want. I can't say how forthcoming companies are with this documentation. Keep in mind trade secrets could be involved that might be violated just by providing that level of specificity.

> trade secrets

I got this excuse when I wanted to know if “natural ingredients” included cinnamon in the cinnamon spread I bought once.

After stating that I had a cinnamon allergy, they confirmed to me that it did.

Inquire with the manufacturer listed on the packaging? There's always some sort of chain to information on packaging, though unless there are laws in place against this, I think we're moving closer to that starting with a qr code than a company name and phone number/address...

Calling/writing to customer service is usually a good start. A lot of this information they are required to have even if they don't need to write it on the label.