Sesame-Free School Lunches in NZ: What the Labels Say

A parent at a Playcentre wrote to me this week. Their tamariki has a sesame allergy, and the planner had no way to plan around it — the allergy filters covered nuts, dairy, gluten and egg, and stopped there. They were right, so I added one. Building it meant reading the sesame line on every allergen label I track, and some of what came back is worth setting out on its own.

Sesame has to be declared — "may contain" does not

Sesame is one of the foods that must be declared on packaged food in New Zealand. Under the Plain English Allergen Labelling rules, mandatory across Australia and New Zealand since 25 February 2024, it has to appear in the ingredient list and in a bold summary statement starting with "Contains" (FSANZ).

The other kind of line is different. "May contain sesame", "made on equipment that also processes sesame" — FSANZ describes these as voluntary statements made by suppliers, which the Food Standards Code does not regulate. One product can carry a declaration, a warning, both, or neither. That split runs through everything below.

Where sesame is declared

Of the 95 tracked products with an allergen label, 9 declare sesame:

Some of these you would expect: tahini is sesame, and hummus is made with it. Others you would not pick from the front of the pack. A curry powder declares sesame. So does a multigrain rice cracker whose name mentions no seed at all. And hoisin sauce and teriyaki sauce — the bottles that turn up in a quick stir-fry or a bento — declare it too.

The bread problem

7 of the 8 labelled breads we track carry a sesame line. None of them declares sesame as an ingredient — every one of those lines is the precautionary kind. The exception is pita bread (woolworths pita bread wholemeal), which mentions no sesame at all.

For a parent packing around sesame, that is the most useful line in this article, and it is not something you can see on the shelf. A plain sandwich loaf with no seed on it can still carry the warning.

Bread is not the only place the warning turns up. 12 other products we track warn about sesame without declaring it: caesar dressing, cheese sauce, coconut, crackers, curry paste, desiccated coconut, gluten-free flour, mango chutney, oat cookie, pretzels, rice crackers and tofu.

What the planner does with it

Tick Sesame Allergy on the planner, under Allergies / Restrictions, and three rules apply.

• Anything that declares sesame is left out — mains and snacks alike. 10 mains drop for this reason: Veggie Wrap, Teriyaki Chicken & Rice, Veggie Sticks & Hummus Box, Falafel Wrap, Noodle Stir-fry, Falafel Pita Pocket, Corn Tortilla Veggie Wrap, Vegetable Samosa, Bulgogi Rice Bento and Char Siu Bao.
• Unlabelled bread, pastry and spices are left out too. A few ingredients have no label I can read: breadcrumbs, ciabatta, croissant, muffin, pastry cases, roll and spices. For the other allergens I checked those by hand. For sesame there is nothing to check against — and the labelled breads above say why that matters — so the filter treats them as unsafe rather than guess. That removes seven more: Ham & Cheese Croissant, Roast Beef Roll, Chicken Pesto Panini, Mini Meatballs, Mini Spinach Quiche, Chilli con Carne and Popcorn Chicken.
• "May contain" stays in, with a warning. 30 of the 77 mains that remain use an ingredient carrying a precautionary sesame line, and the planner marks that day with ⚠ so you know which packet to read. If those were excluded as well, 47 mains would remain — and 18 of the 19 sandwich mains would go with them. Some families will want exactly that; the ⚠ is there so you can make that call yourself.

That leaves 77 of 94 mains. Of the snacks the planner draws from, 30 of 33 remain — Hummus & Veg, Roasted Chickpeas and Wholegrain Crackers drop out. The mains that pass have a median ingredient cost of $2.16 a serve against $3.24 for the 17 that drop — the sesame-free set costs about 33% less than the rest of the menu set, so the filter does not push a week's cost up.

For under-5s, the filter combines with Kindy (under 5), which follows the Ministry of Health's choking guidance for early learning services. Ticked together, 72 mains remain.

Dishes that pass only because of how I wrote them

Fried Rice, Sushi Rolls, Dumplings, Chicken Satay, Rice Paper Rolls and Rice Balls (Onigiri) all pass the filter. Each is often made with sesame — sesame oil in a stir-fry or a dumpling filling, seeds on sushi or onigiri, sesame in a satay or dipping sauce — but the versions in this planner do not use it, so there is nothing for the filter to catch. If you make them your own way, read your recipe the way the filter reads ours.

What this does not do

• It reads one product per ingredient. The label above is the one on the product I track. Yours may be a different brand with a different line.
• Labels change. These are what the retailer published when I read them. A product that carries no warning today can carry one next month.
• It is a planning aid, not a safety check. For a diagnosed allergy, the packet in your hand and the advice of your child's doctor come first.

The data

Every label reading behind these figures is in allergen-labels.csv — one row per product, with a column for declaring sesame and another for warning about it. The wider label story — what other allergens hide behind product names — is in What the Allergen Labels Actually Say.