USA: Voluntary food labelling regulation for ‘gluten-free’ products
As of August 5th 2014, a rule defining which characteristics a food needs to have to bear a label proclaiming it ‘gluten-free’ as issued by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) got into force. The rule is also applicable for foods labelled as ‘without gluten’, ‘free of gluten’ and ‘no gluten’.
In order to label a product as ‘gluten-free’, a food must meet all requirements of the definition as stated in the rule, including that the food must contain less than 20 parts per million of gluten. Any product that fails to meet these requirements, yet being labelled as ‘gluten-free’, is considered misbranded and is subject to regulatory action by FDA (News Release FDA, 5 August 2014).
Click here for the FDA news release.
Click here for a FDA fact sheet on gluten-free labelling (382 kB).
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