Re Gilda Butter Cookies

Asked by d26jj · January 23, 2004 · Kashrut

Question

I find the ongoings with these butter cookies very disturbing. Let's put aside the OU or any Hashgacha orginazation for the moment. The fact that the company themselves can't get their act together should be some sort of a warning to the general public. On the one hand, you have an official representative together with the "questionable ingredient's" producer claiming it is NOT butter, and on the other hand, an official representative claims it is actual butter, and the label certainly indicates that it is.(Although this is not a clear fact, just an assumption that the company is complying with possible FDA rules. I would like to know the actual FDA ruling on this). But whether this product is dairy or not is not the real issue. Here we can be Machmir and say it is dairy. The problem is if the opposite occurred. Let's say that this ingredient from Prime Flavour company is really dairy and not just vegetable oil like they claim it is.. So a different product that lists vegetable oil from (Prime Flavour) might really be dairy and we would not know. How then can we trust labels or company representatives to verify actual ingredients? Thanks

Answer

Answered by Aaron Abadi

The product is created, and the recipe finalized with a lab and the full clarification of all ingredients. The ingredient label is then created by professionals, to conform with FDA regulations. The lawyers must confirm that the label would avoid any obvious lawsuits. After all that, the product is introduced to the market. The fact that later one employee got confused and answered a question incorrectly, does not change the whole Torah. AA