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Gluten-Free Products: What You Need to Know about International Requirements

March 30, 2021 from the Food Safety News

"Meeting international demand for gluten-free products makes sound business sense, but deciphering the hodgepodge of regulations in multiple regions can be challenging. There is no single international regulation or threshold for gluten in gluten-free products, and different countries have adopted their own standards. For example, in the U.S., the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) requires foods labeled as gluten-free to contain less than 20 ppm of unintentionally added gluten. In Japan, the standard is 10 ppm, while Chile has adopted an extremely stringent threshold of 1 ppm, and Australia requires the presence of gluten to be “non-detectable.” Meanwhile, some smaller countries don’t have any regulations for gluten-free products, and labeling requirements in many developing nations have taken a back seat to securing a food supply for hungry populations."

"In addition to varying labeling requirements, different countries have adopted contradictory stances on fermented and hydrolyzed products. For example, FDA recently concluded that no available testing methods can guarantee that fermented and hydrolyzed products are gluten-free. As a result, to be labeled gluten-free, these products must use starting materials that do not exceed the 20-ppm threshold. By contrast, the UK regulation follows the Codex Alimentarius guidance that a result of less than 20 ppm in the finished product, using an R5 enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay method, is sufficient to label a fermented or hydrolyzed product as gluten-free, even when produced from wheat, rye, or barley."