Next month's allergen labeling webinar is free, virtual, and open to every member, and it's worth registering for even if your label copy hasn't changed in years. The short version of why: the list of major food allergens that federal rules require you to disclose is about to get longer, and the changeover date is closer than the label-reprint lead time most creameries and shops are used to working with.
Milk is already one of the major allergens that has to be called out plainly on any product where it's an ingredient, so most cheese labels already handle that part correctly — it's been on the required list for years, and members making cheese have had plenty of time to get the wording right. What's changing is the addition of sesame to the list of allergens that require disclosure, with the new requirement set to take effect at the start of next year. Regulators have signaled they're actively refining guidance on how the expanded list applies in practice, including questions about cross-contact and bulk-food labeling that go beyond a simple ingredient list. That sounds unrelated to a cheese case until you think about everything sitting next to the cheese — cracker pairings, flavored rinds finished with seeds, cheese spreads or compound butters with add-ins. If your shop packages anything in-house that could plausibly contain sesame, this is the rule that will require you to say so, and the guidance keeps evolving as regulators hear from industry.
What the session will cover
The webinar will walk through what counts as a major allergen under current rules, how cross-contact disclosure differs from ingredient disclosure, and what a compliant label actually needs to say versus what's just good practice. For members who make or repackage anything beyond straight wheels of cheese — flavored logs, dipped rinds, gift boxes with crackers or preserves included — this is the session that will save you a label reprint done twice instead of once. We'll also spend some time on labeling for bulk and case-cut product, since the rules there read differently than they do for a prepackaged wedge, and it's an area where members have told us the paperwork gets confusing fast.
It's also a good one for anyone who's newer to the compliance side of the business. A past attendee put it this way after a similar session last year: "I'd been treating the label as a formality until someone walked through what a regulator actually checks first." That's the practical value of an hour like this — not new information so much as a clearer sense of where to look, and permission to ask the basic question you've been assuming someone already answered.
Before you log in
If you want to get the most out of the session, pull your current product labels ahead of time and have them open in a second window. The instructor typically takes a few audience labels as live examples if members are willing to share, and seeing the rule applied to your own copy sticks better than a slide of generic examples. If you've got a label you're already unsure about, bring your questions — this format tends to surface the same handful of edge cases every time, and there's a decent chance someone else on the call has the same one.
Members who make or repackage flavored, dipped, or gift-boxed product should treat this one as close to mandatory. If your shop is purely wholesale wheels with no in-house packaging beyond a plain label, the session is still useful background, but you can safely deprioritize it if your calendar is tight this month.
Registration is free and open through the events page. If your label copy needs an update before the new requirement takes effect, treat this webinar as the starting point, not the whole project — plan the reprint timeline now rather than in December, when every other creamery on the same printer's schedule is trying to do the same thing at once.
The International Cheese Federation (ICF) and More Cheese are entirely fictional. This post is demonstration content created for MemberJunction. All people, organizations, events, courses, certifications, figures, and quotations in it are invented, and nothing here represents a real association, a real business, a real person, or real professional advice.