Sabra Pushes for Hummus ‘Standards’ Law
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
Sabra, the popular U.S. hummus company, petitioned the Food and Drug Administration to create a standard for which dips are considered hummus.
Sabra would like hummus to be defined as “the semisolid food prepared from mixing cooked, dehydrated, or dried chickpeas and tahini with one or more optional ingredients,” according to a news release Monday.
Sabra’s 11-page proposed standards would require products called hummus to be predominantly made of chickpeas, with no more than 5 percent tahini.
According to the news release, similar standards exist for other condiments such as ketchup, mustard and mayonnaise.
“As the popularity of hummus has soared in the United States over the past decade, the name has been applied to items consisting primarily of other ingredients,” Sabra chief technology officer Tulin Tuzel said in the statement. “From black beans and white beans to lentils, soybeans, and navy beans, everyone wants to call their dip ‘hummus.’“
However, Sabra itself sells a variety of hummus “flavors” that would be unrecognizable to most Israelis like “guacamole hummus” and “edamame hummus.”
No word yet on whether Sabra’s proposed law would impact their own products.
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