Glutenfreeda Self-Certification
In an era of heightened
awareness for the gluten-free diet it has become increasingly more difficult to
decipher the manufacturing practices of gluten-free manufacturers. The market space is no longer dominated
by pioneers in gluten-free food manufacturing; it is populated by companies who
make gluten and gluten-free products in the same facility, by large
manufactures who have changed their ingredient statements to fit a gluten-free
profile and by companies who's intent was never to produce gluten-free products
but who are now badging their products 'gluten-free' because the market is
lucrative. Add to the confusion,
gluten-free organizations who offer gluten-free certifications with very little
oversight, little or no follow-up testing and who fail to investigate or
acknowledge sub standard test results for 'certified' companies who repeatedly
test over 20ppm by 3rd party labs.
It is a glorious and
dangerous new world for people with Celiac disease. Glorious because of all the new and
better tasting products now available; dangerous because where once we could be
assured of safety by diligently reading labels or calling the company; now so
many products carry an organization certification badge adopted to alleviate
our fears and concerns, but do they? Not if the standards and protocols for the certification are not
stringent and diligent.
At Glutenfreeda Foods, we
have built our business and our future on providing the safest gluten-free
products available. The
aforementioned era of heightened awareness has translated into an explosion of
people now on gluten-free diets. These people include Celiacs, people with
gluten sensitivity, people who believe a gluten-free diet is healthy and people
who believe a gluten-free diet is the answer to weight loss. We welcome anyone who chooses to live on
a gluten-free diet, but we've built our business for people with Celiac disease
who have zero tolerance. We have
developed a program of stringent standards, protocols and procedures to assure
the utmost safety of our products.
Glutenfreeda Foods Certification is the Gold Standard
What makes Glutenfreeda'
Certification the Gold Standard? Plenty.
Raw Ingredients:
We start with our
suppliers. All approved suppliers
must comply with our list of gluten-free criteria which includes providing a Specification report identifying that their ingredient
tests less than 5ppm. Suppliers need to assure that risks,
critical control points, and preventative measures are identified in the
handling of gluten-free ingredients at their facilities. Their HACCP must include a dedicated
program for handling of gluten-free products and a Hazard Analysis that
includes Critical Control Points must be established to formalize a gluten-free
program and protocol.
We perform a risk assessment
for all ingredients identifying their potential risk of
cross-contamination. For
ingredients that we determine have a significant risk, we conduct an audit at the suppliers facility and perform our own tests on the
ingredient before we accept them onto our production floor.
Finished Goods:
We conduct on-going, daily
testing at our facility. Finished products
are selected at random, daily for testing. All our products test below 5ppm. Each quarter we send a sample of every
product we produce to an outside 3rd party lab for verification in
triplicate. All verifications have
returned less than 5ppm gluten. (In fact, we consistently test less than 2.5ppm, the lowest number the test reports.)
Production and packing lines
are also tested on an on-going frequent schedule.
Besides our rigorous testing
procedures, Glutenfreeda Foods is also a 100%
dedicated gluten-free facility. No gluten has ever been on our
production floor since our inception, ever. It is our belief that co-producing
gluten and gluten-free products in the same facility is an unsafe practice that
can lead to cross-contamination and in our opinion is risky business.
Soon you will see all
Glutenfreeda Foods products with our trade marked Glutenfreeda Certification
badge.
This badge is your assurance
that you and your family are consuming the safest gluten-free products available. Unlike other certifications like organic
or kosher, for many of us, living on a gluten-free diet is not a choice but a
necessary life long lifestyle that we must adopt to improve and sustain our
health.
Safe,
authentic tasting, quality
gluten-free products is what we're all about and the reason we continue to earn
our customer's trust and loyalty.
Yvonne Gifford,
Chief Executive Officer;
Celiac
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