The School Safe label and classification system is used by companies to indicate a particular product of theirs is free from the eight most common food allergens. It classifies food based on what the FDA has identified as the 8 major foods allergens, but it isn’t a classification system or nut free labeling created by the FDA.
In fact, it’s a good idea to read what 8 allergens each company is claiming to be the top allergens. It mostly stays the same, but sometimes the ingredients, or the way the ingredients are classified differs. According to the FDA the eight major allergens include: milk, eggs, fish, shellfish, tree-nuts, peanuts, wheat, and soy. These are the eight foods designated as “major food allergens’ by FALCPA.
School Safe products became popular to make shopping for food allergy classrooms easier. Unfortunately, the number of food allergic children is rising, and so are nut free or nut aware classrooms, and nut free or nut-aware schools. Most products using the phrase “School Safe” are created in dedicated nut free facilities, which is awesome! They’ll indicate so on the packaging. School Safe snacks are making classrooms safer for nut allergic kids as well as other food allergic kids.
Treasure Mills produces many School Safe snacks that are available in most grocery stores. To learn more about brands that are school safe and also made in dedicated nut free facilities, we recommend reading the Safe Snack Guide by SnackSafely.