Changes to NGCI Guidelines

From yesterday (20th July 2016), food labelling guidelines regarding gluten changed yet again. In 2014 the labelling laws changed meaning gluten plus 13 other allergens had to be in bold or stand out on ingredients and also made "may contain" warnings optional, it is only out of politeness that some manufacturers state the may contain info, they do not have to do that at all.

However as of yesterday another guideline came into place which affects the term "No Gluten-Containing Ingredients" or "NGCI". Businesses are now no longer allowed to use this term on individual products or dishes on both packaged food or on menu choices. Meaning if you see NGCI used on say crisps, chocolate etc this is being disbanded so it will not be allowed to state this, instead it will say nothing or the manufacturer can choose to be polite and use a may contain if this is the case.

The only product we can think of that uses NGCI is Thorntons, so expect their packaging to change to either state nothing or change to a may contain if they think that more suitable.

While this change will affect products and dishes it will still however be acceptable to title a menu or list products using the term, so if you ask for a list of everything that doesn't contain gluten in, for example, Tesco (which is only a 600 page list if anyone is interested) they will still be able to label that as NGCI.

Confused by these changes? Yet you are not the only one I'm sure, remember to check for wheat, rye, barley in bold in ingredients and check for may contains and fingers crossed those products are fine for us!