Labelling Gluten Free Products

Around 1% of people in the UK are intolerant to gluten (often referred to as coeliac disease) and need to avoid foods containing gluten to prevent potentially serious health effects. This makes labelling claims about gluten in foods an important issue.

New labelling standards
The European Commission, using recent internationally recognised scientific evidence, has introduced compositional and labelling standards (Commission Regulation (EC) No. 41/2009) that set levels of gluten for foods claiming to be either 'gluten-free' or 'very low gluten', which came into force in January 2012. These levels are:

• 'gluten-free': at 20 parts per million of gluten or less
• 'very low gluten': at 100 parts per million of gluten or less – however, only foods with cereal ingredients that have been specially processed to remove the gluten may make a 'very low gluten' claim

These regulations apply to all foods, pre-packed or sold loose, such as in shops or in catering establishments.

The new labelling standards are an important public health measure to help protect the long term health of coeliacs. These labelling standards will enable coeliacs to make informed choices about the foods that are safe for them to eat.

Where caterers are unable to justify 'gluten-free' or 'very low gluten' claims because of the risk of cross-contamination, if steps have been taken to control this contamination, caterers will be able to indicate which foods do not have gluten-containing ingredients, allowing coeliacs to make choices based on their individual levels of sensitivity.

Guidance
To help industry and enforcement authorities understand the new rules and encourage the provision of information for coeliacs, the Food Standards Agency has developed two sets of guidance. One will cover compliance with the Regulations, and the other will give advice to caterers on providing gluten information for unpackaged foods. The Agency has also developed information for consumers to help raise awareness of the rules that came into force in January 2012. Two bullet points from the guidance are printed below.

'Gluten-free'
Foods described as “gluten-free”Ÿ must not contain more than 20mg/kg gluten in the food as sold to the final consumer.
Where foods have been specially prepared for people intolerant to gluten and include substitutes for one or more ingredients made from wheat, rye, barley, oats or their crossbred varieties and the level of gluten is 20mg/kg or less the claim “gluten- free”Ÿ has to be used, for example a muffin made with rice flour instead of wheat flour or pasta made from corn. A “gluten-free”Ÿ claim can also be used on products containing a gluten reduced ingredient or a combination of substitute and gluten-reduced ingredients.

Oats
Oats contained in foodstuffs for people intolerant to gluten must be produced and prepared and/or processed in a way to avoid contamination by wheat, rye, barley or their crossbred varieties. Only oats that have a level of 20mg/kg of gluten or less can be labelled as 'gluten-free' or used in products labelled as 'gluten-free' or 'very low gluten'.

Best Practice
It is recommended that manufacturers producing foods for people intolerant to gluten ensure that their facilites are either adequately cleaned down or dedicated to the production of such foods to eliminate any risk of cross-contamination that could occur from multi-purpose food manufacturing.

If challenged, the food producer will need to demonstrate that they had put in place appropriate procedures and controls, in order to ensure that the final product does not contain more than the specified level of gluten. Showing due diligence through Critical Control Points, a system of record keeping and regular testing to demonstrate consistent results is advisable.

Non pre-packed foods which are specially produced for people intolerant to gluten

The UK has taken advantage of provision in the National Regulations to allow Parnuts* foods, which are sold non pre-packed, to be able to make either of the claims “gluten-free”Ÿ or “very low gluten”Ÿ, provided they comply with all of the conditions outlined above. These claims can be made, for example, on menus, blackboards, or in discussions between the customer and the serving staff.

*Parnuts are Foods for Particular Nutritional Use

Attachments:

• guidancelabellinggluten2010.pdf