Sharing the finding on my Facebook page and it went a bit haywire, but it was noted from the comments that it seemed to be a particular bottle that had the changed ingredients, so I did a bit of digging and asked about and this is what I found.
I reached out to Hellmann's via their Instagram to find out if this was a recipe change that us Coeliacs and anyone with a wheat allergy needed to be on the look out for, or if there were two products around that we needed to be aware of.
We recently launched Hellmann’s Delicious Mayo to provide a great tasting mayonnaise at a lower recommended retail price. As per the ingredients on the back of pack, there is a difference in the blend of oils listed within the two products which enables us to achieve this whilst keeping the calorie content the same.
There are different ingredients in the Hellmann's Delicious Light Mayo & Hellmann's Light Mayonnaise. There are 2 versions of light mayo out there. However, we always do advise to check the packaging for the best up to date ingredients list.
- Hellmann's Customer Engagement Centre
I noticed they ignored the fact I asked about the wheat being in there but they did clarify this isn't a recipe change but a new product, BOTH versions are available, so keep watch on which version of mayo you buy!
In the last month or so Hellmann's launched Hellmann's Delicious Mayo, though the front of the bottle doesn't have Delicious wrote on it, it is only in tiny writing on the back. Basically a budget recipe made for budget shops. From what I can distinguish Farmfoods, Heron and Poundland all stock this new one. This new version of the mayo contains wheat in the ingredients along with a blend of oils and padding it out....basically making mayonnaise on the cheap by adding s**t.
Furthermore, because there was a whole argument of whether the wheat was 20ppm or less and may still be gluten free, I asked them if it was suitable for Coeliacs or not.
The one containing wheat is not suitable, but the Hellmann's Light Mayonnaise (not the great value recipe one) is suitable.
-Hellmann's Customer Engagement Centre
If you get the regular Hellmann's Light Mayonnaise it is labelled as gluten free on the back by the ingredients, this is the version you will find in your regular supermarkets.
The bottles are very similar but there is a quick way of telling if you have the naughty one - it has a massive red label on the top!
Hopefully this doesn't catch to many people out, but one to be aware of when out shopping if you are a Hellmann's mayo fan.