Analytical validation of "wheat free" claims?

I'm interested to know if anyone has any experience with the analytical validation of a "wheat free" claim being made on products. Gluten Free products in the UK market are usually also labelled as wheat free but I'm unsure how they are validating this claim. I am aware of rapid tests and R5 mendez testing for gluten content, but how are people validating the wheat? I'm unaware of any speciation testing available to target wheat specifically. Any thoughts?

I'm interested to know if anyone has any experience with the analytical validation of a "wheat free" claim being made on products. Gluten Free products in the UK market are usually also labelled as wheat free but I'm unsure how they are validating this claim. I am aware of rapid tests and R5 mendez testing for gluten content, but how are people validating the wheat? I'm unaware of any speciation testing available to target wheat specifically. Any thoughts?

Hi Elaine

I've previously worked where my product has more than one allergen in it. I was told by ***** auditor that i only needed to test for 1 of the allergens in the product (there were 3 in there) because if the cleaning got rid of one, then it would have (theoretically) got rid of the others.
I never had any problems getting this past subsequent auditors.

Caz x

Thanks Caz, we're actually a wheat and gluten free site so line clean downs are less of a concern for us because wheat/gluten isn't in any product that we manufacture. Our issue is more the validation of a specific "wheat free" product claim when there is the potential for cross contaimination of wheat from raw material suppliers, crop contamination, etc. In order to make a "wheat free" claim, I have followed due diligence with approved raw materials and suppliers, etc but have carried out no analysis to validate the claim. I have also been challenged on this matter by a retailer which has stumped me a little. They want me to send them analysis results to validate the claim, but I can't!

Don't forget to check if the claim is legally defined !

We had "suitable for coeliaci" on one of our packagings but the auditor made a minor for this as this was not a legal claim following the EU legislation.
It now needs to be "gluten free" or "very low gluten". I'm not sure if "wheat free" is actually recognised as a claim

Dear Elaine,

It's not my area but i suspect previous post is near the truth.

The whole topic is obviously a terminology minefield, eg -

what is wheat-free.png   417.72KB   8 downloads

The FSA interpretation of "gluten-free" is attached -

FSA, gluten.pdf   246.85KB   22 downloads

The above items suggest that, if actually legally necessary, an analysis validating "gluten-free" should suffice. You omitted to state the actual product so usefulness of this option uncertain.

The request to you might perhaps have been prompted by alerts captioned as per this link -

http://www.food.gov....0/apr/tescorice


I also noticed this chunk but the references are ca. 2005 -

There still is no general agreement on the analytical method used to measure gluten in ingredients and food products.[20] The official limits described in the Codex Draft are 20 ppm for foodstuffs that are considered naturally gluten-free and 200 ppm for foodstuffs rendered gluten-free.[21] The ELISA method was designed to detect w-gliadins, but it suffered from the setback that it lacked sensitivity for barley prolamins.[22]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gluten-free_diet

It is tempting to ask yr customer for evidence of necessity.

Rgds / Charles.C

Dear elaine,

Did you reach any conclusion ?

Rgds / Charles.C