Gluten Testing
Good Morning all. Our plant is looking into becoming Gluten Free. We are currently SQF level 3 certified in high acid canning. My question to the group are the following:
What are some of the gluten test kits you are using in a manufacturing environment?
Do you use swabs or strips?
Which do you prefer? and why?
Do you test environmental, raw material, or equipment? or all three?
Once again, we are new to this so there may be some questions i havent asked that i should have. Any advise would be greatly appreciated,
I would think you might need to do both - ie traditional & rapid testing to show the rapid tests are suitable and perform a risk assessment each each HACCP step if you do have any gluten containing raw materials on site as you would need to show there is no risk - and if you are making a "free from" claim the attached guidance may help.
Lastly if you are going gluten free your NPD folks will need to know this to avoid proposing new products that could contain gluten as you'd have the repeat the above exercise if so....
apologies, here is the attachment
Attached Files
ForWhich label you are planning to become certified?
Depending on that decision you have to select tests which are permitted to be used.
At the end you have to use several kinds. Frequency depends on the risk.
As a pre-test I have used protein swabs.
Rgds
Moskito
Our plant has had Gluten Free certification for the past 10+ years.
We use the EZ Gluten test kit ( detection at 10ppm) for finished product, equipment and environmental testing.
It's an easy test to use, inexpensive and is versatile for many applications.
We also use a 3rd party lab for validation testing several times a year.
Agreeing with Leslie that you'll need to incorporate this into your HACCP plan, complete a risk assessment and create/amend your GMP's to cover all aspects of Gluten Free production.
The GF certification body you are going to work with, will have a standardschematic that you will work to.....we have found them to be most
helpful in achieving and maintaining our certification. Hope that helps.
Hi everyone,
Our plant is looking into becoming Gluten Free. We are currently SQF certified bakery. The plan is produce GF along with products that has Gluten.
What are some of the gluten test kits you are using in a manufacturing environment?
What is the most suitable test to do not only on racks, pans, trays that have been through the first baking step, but also on slicing machines, and tables in direct contact with loaves (loaves has modified protein after baking)? (the kits can detect heat processed Gluten (final product and surfaces)as when proteins are heated, baked, or extruded their structure is modified and will be hard to detect.)
what is your frequency for test environmental, raw material?