Or they don't want to make it obvious that they're taking something cheap and marking it up a million percent and nobody is asking questions. This happens a lot in "our only customers are government or compelled to buy by government" industries of which fire is one.

The usual reflexive secrecy. Nobody gives out any information about what's in any product if they can avoid it. This has really bad economic and environmental effects.

I don't know that this particular retardant is a big deal, but the rule really ought to be that the maker of every product must disclose to the public (not just actual buyers) (a) what they put into it, (b) where they got it, (c) how they assured that it was what they thought it was, (e) how they processed it, (e) exactly what analyses or characterizations they've ever done on the product or anything that went into it, and (f) the complete results of those.

Trade secrets not only shouldn't get any legal protection, but in many cases they should be illegal.

I once bought a cinnamon spread but the ingredients didn’t explicitly say cinnamon, it just included “natural flavour”.

I asked the company to confirm if cinnamon was one of the “natural flavouring” and they refused to confirm!

I really hate that companies are allowed to use "natural flavors" and I refuse to buy any products that say that unless they are able to specifically tell me what's not in it.

Lots of people don't realize that "natural" can mean pretty much anything that's not produced in a lab.

There is a trend though where some companies include in the nutrition facts the sources of their ingredients. That's how it should be.

In the US you can write "modified food starch" and that can mean a million different things. In Europe they have specific numbers for different types of "modified food starch."

The characteristic flavor of cinnamon is almost entirely due cinnamic aldehyde.

There's a lot of it in various species of Cinnamomum. My guess is that they are using a mix of true cinnamon and its close relatives.

It occurs rarely and in small amounts in other plants, so small that I don't think it would be economical.

The only other shortcut to "natural" flavor that I can think of would be GMO bacteria or something.

It's very likely that the natural flavors include other things unrelated to cinnamon, like vanillin or eugenol (cloves, carnation). Flavoring is an art closely related to perfumery, by the way.

Reminds me the "Sandwich that tastes like sandwich with chicken".

This is one of the downsides of an excessively litigious society.

Being afraid of potential risks, even if there are none, reduces transparency.

Unfortunately, excessive litigation is one of the downsides of an under regulated society. If our only protection from corporations is lawsuits then we shouldn't be surprised that people bring a lot of lawsuits.

And then you have the Germans, where they only feel safe in the most litigious and one of the most highly regulated countries of the world :)

> excessively litigious

I haven't heard evidence that litigation is excessive, except by very wealthy corporations and people.

I think most or many people lack access to litigation - they can't afford to use it or to protect themselves from it.

This industry learned a lesson from the AFFF debacle. And that lesson wasn't "share everything".

Companies don't need the threat of litigation to hide information about products. That's why departments like the FDA and USDA were created to begin with. For example, people were selling crude oil as medicine, and people were selling tape worm eggs a weight-loss pills.