Truth about Greggs Gluten Free and Patisserie Valerie's GF Venture

A few articles have been popping up recently about Greggs offering gluten free options later this year, Greggs confirmed the articles are only partially right when we posted the article on Twitter, tagging them in the post at the same time. Their response to that was:

@CoeliacSanc Thanks for your tweet we can confirm that the press reports are partly accurate in that we’re looking at gluten free trials.

— Greggs (@GreggsOfficial) January 13, 2016

Many Coeliacs have also been questioning Greggs via email concerned about whether they will be able to safely cater to Coeliacs with all the potential cross contamination. Greggs have been replying with the same reply to everyone including me:

"Press reports are partly accurate in that we are looking at gluten free trials, however, it may be that we are not able to comply with the strict cross contamination regime demanded by the gluten free claim. If that is the case we will look to trial products made without gluten but they could not be recommended to customers with a medical allergy to gluten."

We hope Greggs do manage to work things out with it, I'm sure a lot of Coeliacs will appreciate the choice of a fast option while out and about since we are very limited, so far we don't know of a timescale all we know is trials will be probably be this year.

EDIT: As of 2nd August 2016 there has been an update from Greggs in regard to their gluten free plans, please see this blog for details.

On a brighter note, from tomorrow (Monday 18th Jan) Patisserie Valerie are introducing a Gluten Free range named "Gloriously Gluten Free" which will include 5 different options; brownie, muffin, ginger biscuit, marble cake and flapjack. Compared to the rest of their amazing definitely not gluten free range which includes many fancy cakes, tarts, croissants, macaroons and brioche, it isn't that inspiring, but it's definitely more options than you get in most places! I'm quite looking forward to trying marble cake if I'm honest.

From pictures we have seen it looks like they may be served in their own boxes to prevent cross contamination, something we are keeping our fingers crossed for, hopefully they won't do something silly like put them flush up against all that nasty gluteny stuff, we also hope the staff training is up to par so they know how to deal with allergens properly.

A few people have asked if they are going to be dairy free options too, to us it doesn't look like any of the GF offerings are going to be suitable, but you never know, hopefully at least SOMETHING is suitable for those Coeliacs who are also lactose intolerant.

We will keep you updated about both places and their gluten free ventures when we know more.