Sabra Pushes for Hummus ‘Standards’ Law
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.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and the protests on college campuses.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO