Food Allergy & General Mills

As manufacturers and consumers, we understand your concern about potential allergens in the foods you eat.

In this section:

Our primary goal is to provide accurate information on the packaging of each product. To do this, we carefully manage the ingredients we buy and how we manufacture our products.

Every person is unique, we all have the potential to become allergic to many different types of protein found in food, however, there are some foods that account for the majority of allergic reactions. These are known as ‘major’ allergens.

However even when it is not required by local regulation, if there is a risk to allergic consumers due to the presence of a major allergen in a product, we will declare its presence on the packaging of that product. The allergens that we will always declare are:

Questions? Visit our Ask Us About Our Food site.

  • Peanuts
  • Tree nuts (almonds, brazil nuts, cashews, coconut, filberts/hazelnuts, macadamia, pecans, pistachios, pine nuts, and walnuts.)
  • Egg
  • Milk
  • Fish
  • Crustaceans
  • Mollusks
  • Wheat
  • Soybeans
  • Sesame seed

When we declare the presence of allergens, we keep our communication as simple as possible, there are two types of declaration we make on our packaging:

  • CONTAINS (name of allergen)’, when we have used an ingredient that is an allergen

    • We will declare the allergen in the so-called ‘contains statement’. This is part of the label known as the allergen declaration. We may also highlight the ingredient within the list of ingredients. When it is not possible to use an allergen declaration on the label due to regulatory or other reasons, in the case of some products in some parts of the world, we will always highlight the allergen in the list of ingredients.

  • ‘MAY CONTAIN (name of allergen)’, when an allergen may be present unintentionally.

    • We will also provide information through the use of a so-called ‘may contain’ statement. The use of this statement is part of a program to manage the presence of allergens across everything we do, from ingredients, manufacturing, to finished products. We do everything we can to eliminate unintentional allergens, and we only use the ‘may contain’ statement when there is a real risk, albeit low, to an allergic consumer.

    Both ‘contains’ and ‘may contain’ mean that if you are sensitive to the specific allergen(s), no matter which way it is listed on the package, you should avoid the product.

    If you have allergy concerns, it is important to carefully read the information on each package. Ingredient and allergen information listed on a package is only for the food contained in that package. It is not intended for other packages even of what appears to be the same product. Ingredients may vary from one package to another due to product reformulation or where the product is produced.

    General Mills is committed to informing and protecting our consumers, therefore we actively work with governments and experts globally to increase the understanding of food allergens and continuously improve how they are managed in our products.

    For more information about our products, or questions, please visit our site, Ask General Mills.