Most Popular Gluten Free Certification Symbol
Good morning All,
I have been tasked by site leadership team to have a look at possibility to claim “gluten free” on our products. It “should” be straight forward task as we don’t have any gluten containing raw materials or finished goods on site.
I have started digging into it and found out that there is a load of different standard and certification symbols?! Crossed wheat, GF, and others… and now I am well confused. Which one to use? We sell our products to Europe, America and Asia. Which is most widely recognisable. All of them claim it is theirs. Can any one help me please?
Agnes
It all depends on your target market. The Crossed Grain is European, but accepted world wide. Depending on cost/benefit you may want to use more than one. Many of our suppliers have more than 1 GFSI certificate for that reason.
Everyone may say their's is the best, however you need to do some drilling down to find the meat.
For instance the most widely used one in the US is the black "GF" in the black outlined circle and this one is product based.
The big one is Canada is Gluten-Free Certification Program (GFCP) and this one is process based and covers Canada, the United States and globally.
As consultants and for the good of the consuming public and also for the fact that I am gluten challenged myself we consult on the process based GFCP and are about to begin work with a company in Peru and another in the US for this certification.
With that said, going back to the first sentence you really need to take a close look at their websites, really drill down to see who is endorsing on record the different ones, for us it was hands-down GFCP, but for you it may be different.
You can find a listing of approved GFCP Consultants here:
A couple of things to consider
Cross grain
European focus, max gluten level 20ppm in finish product
you can combine the audit into your BRC through the additional module
for UK, auditors relatively local
GFCO
USA focus, max gluten level 10ppm in raw materials, not the finished product
cannot combine into the BRC is a separate audit
for the UK, auditors are scarce, GFCO assign the auditor, they can come from a long way away
Really depends on your market, if you are going for the USA you really need the GFCO
rdgs
First, congratulations on your process for helping protect those that depend on safe, reliable gluten-free foods for medical reasons!
You are correct that both manufacturers, brand owners and consumers have every right to be confused by all the various claims around certification and the associated symbols, on packaging. To our knowledge, all gluten free certification claims around the globe are dependent on testing results, some using various approaches with manufacturers to gain assurance before granting permissions to use their trademarks/seals. Some schemes use remote questionnaires, some claim to conduct an on-site inspection from questionable experienced food safety professionals. As we all should know you cannot test your way to producing a reliable gluten-free product. Testing at the very best of times, requires professional analysis methodologies and techniques can be unreliable. I know i am somewhat bias, but I do believe and know that the Gluten-Free Certification Program (GFCP) www.glutenfreecert.com provides consumers with the most consistent and preventative food safety assurances possible, when a manufacturer/brand makes a gluten-free product claim on their label.
I also know that the GFCP is the only GF certification program annually verifying and certifying the manufacturing facility and it's gluten control process, for their ongoing control of any gluten or cross-contamination in their facility. This process is annually audited by over 15 globally situated ISO 17021-1 and ISO 17065 accredited certification bodies, who collectively employ over 300 certified GFSI food safety auditors, that are all additionally trained/certified in the robust GFCP Standards & Policies. This provides a true ISO based unbiased and arms-length certification process, which compliments any other similar third-party food safety system audit to mitigate the risk of a gluten-free product failure.
So in a nutshell, GFCP focusses first delivering the most rigorous gluten-free manufacturing assurances in the industry, followed by options for brands to market their GF products, with the endorsements from leading celiac organizations in North America and around the world.
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Dear All,
Thank you all for your input. I have learned a lot.
Regards
agnes