New Update: Changes to Gluten

And now is the turn of “Changes to Gluten”, an enhancement to how Manufacturers can declare the presence and absence of gluten in their products - as well as stating whether a product is certified as “gluten-free”.

What is the current deal with gluten on product specifications on Erudus?

Currently, when filling out a product specification we have attributes declaring the overall gluten concentration of the product - namely, whether it is <20ppm or not, and whether the product is ”Suitable for Coeliacs”.

However, the term “Suitable for Coeliacs” is often misinterpreted to mean that a product is automatically safe to be eaten by people with Coeliac disease - due to there being no Cereals containing Gluten present - when legally it is an optional suitability statement that can only be used when accompanying a “gluten-free” or “very low gluten: claim.

For example, an apple may not be tested to be <20ppm gluten, but someone with Coeliac disease would likely be ok to eat it, and so people assume that “Suitable for Coeliac” encompasses all products of that ilk.

Only the following statements can be used to provide information to consumers on the absence or reduced presence of gluten:

• Gluten-free - The statement "gluten-free" may only be made where the food as sold to the final consumer contains no more than 20 mg/kg of gluten.
• Very low gluten - The statement "very low gluten" may only be made where the food, consisting of or containing one or more ingredients made from wheat, rye, barley, oats or their crossbred varieties which have been specially processed to reduce the gluten content, contains no more than 100 mg/kg of gluten in the food as sold to the final consumer.

How is the declaration of gluten changing on Erudus product specifications?

To remove the ambiguity, we are removing the attribute “Suitable for Coeliac” from our dataset.

Instead, we are introducing definitive “free-from” claim attributes for all the 14 major allergens (including Cereals containing Gluten, or gluten) on product specifications.

We will also be allowing Manufacturers to declare the gluten concentration of individual cereals (such as wheat and rye) that are present in their product - meaning that Manufacturers using gluten-free ingredients can declare this without needing to declare the gluten concentration of the whole product. For example, using gluten-free oats in a flapjack, but not testing the product to make a gluten-free claim.

Why are we making this change?

We understand that ambiguity around the “Suitable for Coeliacs” attribute can sometimes lead to frustration.

Some users might want products to declare “Suitable for Coeliac” even on those such as bottled water - which do not use any ingredients that contain gluten, whilst others are against doing this because a declaration that a product is “Suitable for Coeliac” is legally the same as making a gluten-free claim, which under best practice should be backed up with testing.

By introducing definitive “free-from” claim attributes, we are removing much of the vagueness around gluten content, being clearer about allergen ingredients, and providing our users with confidence and clarity

How do the changes benefit our users?

Manufacturer Users

Should they wish to, Manufacturers can now make definitive gluten-free claims about their products, and can take advantage of more granularity when declaring gluten concentration for gluten sources in their products.

Wholesaler Users

Wholesalers will have less ambiguity about the presence and concentration of different gluten sources in the products they are interested in.

All Erudus users will benefit from there being no ambiguous language used between Wholesalers, Manufacturers and Caterers.

How will this alter the logistics of user experience on Erudus?

From 8th of January, Erudus users will be able to update their specifications from “legacy” specifications to different specification types that take advantage of all the new data available within Erudus.

Do users need to do anything ahead of these changes being implemented?

Not ahead of the upcoming changes, but we would encourage all Manufacturer users to review and update their specifications as soon as possible after the 8th of January to take advantage of the new attributes in the data set.

We’d like to reassure users that existing attributes such as “Suitable for Coeliac” won’t just disappear on the updates launch date - they will be transitioned out as users update and add new specifications that benefit from the improved clarity and accuracy of the “free-from” attribute.