Follow up on Crispy Crowns

According to my friend who discovered this discrepancy to begin with...

I had an interesting chat with the OreIda rep, the same one I talked to on Monday. She was kind enough to follow up with me. I am truly thankful that she did! Here's the scoop...

The Crispy Crowns that are in the bag had been reformulated to remove the wheat. However, they are still not considered GF due to possible cross contamination issues at this point in time. The ingredient list and the Allergen Contains statement was wrong. The product does not contain gluten ingredients, but is not considered GF - so the GF labeling was wrong too.

OreIda is revamping their GF labeling policies/procedures/practices. Want to know what the #1 type of phone calls they receive? GLUTEN! I don't doubt that one bit!, this is not the 1st mfg that has said this. They are listening and want to better serve us.

I asked about their allergen labeling practices - do they disclose barley, rye and oats? The rep stated they follow the FDA guidelines to the letter. However, barley, rye and oats do not legally have to be disclosed according to the FDA FALCPA law. She did inquire about the oats. I gave her a quick primer on oats and why commercial oats are not considered GF. I also told her that other companies do disclose barley, rye and oats voluntarily and that it helps us make wise food choices. Who's product are we going to buy first? The one makes it easier for us of course!

Another helpful tid-bit of info. If you look at the manufacturing code by the UPC label - this will tell you where the product was packaged/processed. You want to look for the letters "ON" - signifies Ontario Idaho. This is the main office/plant for OreIda. Why is this significant? That plant has dedicated lines solely for their gluten products. Any non-gluten products are run on different lines. Not all of their plants or co-packers have this set up. She did state that they do have stringent cleaning procedures in place for the locations that do run both GF and NGF products on shared equipment. I asked if they test their final product - she did not know the exact answer.