EC Directive on gluten-free foods

Following the agreement on the new dual Codex Standard in November 2007, the EC has produced a draft Directive on gluten-free foods.

The draft Directive will be established under PARNUTS (Foods for Particular Nutritional Uses) Directive 89/398/EC.

The Directive sets out to establish rules for the use of terms used in labelling gluten-free foods whether they are specialist substitute products, or ordinary foods that are naturally gluten-free.

Specific areas that need finalising include the terminology for the labelling of specialist substitute products which have a gluten content between 20 and 100 parts per million, and also the issue of including oats in the legislation and associated labelling terminology. There is also a need to develop terminology for naturally gluten-free products that are not from specialist ranges.

The next step for the draft Directive is that there will be further discussion at an expert  Working Group meeting on 13th May 2008 followed by a consultation period with stakeholders.

Coeliac UK is working closely with the Food Standards Agency to inform the UK position.