Gluten Free Status

Regarding the Gluten-Free Status of Products Sold at River and Bees

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There is not a consensus between the major support groups in the USA, Canada and Europe as to which grains/ingredients are safe for people with celiac disease, and which are not. River and Bees has chosen to follow the most broadly accepted gluten-free standards, which are contained in the Codex Alimentarius. Codex Alimentarius is a Geneva-based international organization jointly run by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations. Its aim is to establish worldwide standards for foods in the broadest sense. Food legislation in many countries, including in the United States, is based on Codex Standards. The Joint FAO/WHO Food Standards Program Codex Committee on Nutrition and Foods for Special Dietary Uses at their twenty first session in Berlin, Germany in September 1998 drafted a revised standard for gluten-free foods. This statement has served at the guideline defining which foods may declared “gluten-free.”

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Section 1.1: “This standard applies to foodstuffs and ingredients which have been especially processed or prepared to meet the dietary needs of persons intolerant to gluten".

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It goes on in section 2.1 to state that “Gluten-Free” foods are food stuffs so described:

• a) consisting of or made only from ingredients which do not contain any prolamins from wheat or all Triticum species such as spelt, kamut, or durum, wheat, barley, oats, spelt or their crossbred varieties with a gluten level not exceeding 20 parts per million (ppm): or

• b) consisting of ingredients from wheat, rye, barley, oats, spelt or their crossbred varieties, which have been rendered “gluten-free”; with a gluten level not exceeding 20ppm: or

• c) any mixture of the two ingredients as in a) and b) with a gluten level not exceeding 20ppm.

 

In section 3.1 of the report it states:

“For the purpose of this standard ‘gluten-free’ means that the total content of gluten in products defined in 2.1a) shall not exceed 20ppm, that the total content of gluten from wheat, rye, barley, oats or crossbred varieties of these does not exceed 20ppm in these food stuffs or ingredients defined in 2.1b) and c) on a dry matter basis. The prolamin content of liquid food products is in the same way expressed in ppm of the original product."

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All products sold at River and Bees fit into category "a" and are not made from wheat or any gluten containing grains. It is the customers sole responsibility to read and understand the ingredients in each product that they purchase on our site, and to know what is safe for their diets.

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We hope you enjoy shopping at River and Bees!