Barley malt vinegar and barley malt extract are two ingredients that sometimes confuse people.  Here at Coeliac UK, we often receive the question, “if the ingredients lists gluten, how can it be suitable for a gluten free diet?’” In light of recent updates around fermented and hydrolysed products, our Evidence and Policy team has compiled a handy guide to help you understand the facts.

 

• We are no longer listing products containing barley malt extract or barley malt vinegar unless they are labelled gluten free.
• This is because barley malt extract and barley malt vinegar are made from gluten containing grains.
• Approximately 88% of the suitable products listed in our Food and Drink Information are not labelled gluten free, but this policy change will only affect 187 unique products (300 products in total when you include different sizes of the same product).
• This action has been taken to encourage more manufacturers to make a public declaration and commitment to producing gluten free that goes beyond the reassurances given to Coeliac UK and is easier to manage. The outcome is to improve options for gluten free consumers and make it easier for them to make a gluten free choice.
• You can help us to drive this positive change by contacting manufacturers and retailers to share your feedback on gluten free labelling.

 

Barley malt extract

To start, let’s take a look at barley malt extract. Barley malt extract is produced as a modification to the brewing process for beer, and at a certain point of the brewing process, instead of going off to be fermented and turned into beer, barley is turned into barley malt extract.

Barley malt extract is used to enhance flavours in foods like breakfast cereals and chocolates. Because it’s used in very small quantities, the end product usually contains 20 parts per million (ppm) of gluten or less, meaning it can be legally labelled gluten free. The problem is, you can’t tell how much barley malt extract has been used in a product just by looking at the packaging, unless it has been labelled gluten free, or if you contact the manufacturer and they confirm the product has been tested and contains no more than 20 ppm of gluten. This can make things very confusing if you are following a gluten free diet.

What’s new?

We used to list products containing barley malt extract and 20 ppm or less of gluten in our food information service if they were labelled gluten free or if the manufacturers had assured us that the end product was gluten free.

We have now changed our policy because we want greater clarity from manufacturers who make products with gluten containing grains, such as barley malt extract. We want them to label these products gluten free to show they are committed to gluten free law and to make it easier for consumers to accurately check if a product is gluten free. There is no charge to label a product gluten free, but not doing so can make it more difficult for us to keep track of changes to a product’s gluten free status, because we rely on the manufacturer to keep us updated. This means we will no longer be listing in our food information services some products made with ingredients from gluten containing grains, such as barley malt extract, even if they have no more than 20 ppm gluten, unless they are labelled gluten free.

Barley malt vinegar

Next, let’s look at barley malt vinegar. Barley malt vinegar starts off in the same way as barley malt extract but instead goes on to be fermented and then turned into vinegar. During the fermentation process the gluten proteins in barley are hydrolysed which breaks the gluten protein into small pieces. Typically, this means that the amount of gluten left in the product is extremely low. Some barley malt vinegars also have added barley malt extract – again usually a very small amount.

So if the amount of gluten left in barley malt vinegar is extremely low, is it safe for people with coeliac disease? Potentially – but the only way to be absolutely sure is to check if it’s labelled gluten free.

We have previously considered barley malt vinegar gluten free, as it’s eaten in small amounts and normally has a gluten level of 20ppm or less.  However, we want our community to have absolute clarity and peace of mind if they choose to include barley malt vinegar in their diet – and we know from your feedback many of you feel the same way. So we changed our policy in 2020 and no longer list any barley malt vinegar products in our food information services, unless they’re labelled gluten free. We are also continuing our work with manufacturers to push for better gluten free testing and labelling and will keep you updated on our progress in this area.

What does this mean for me?

We know that many of you might now be asking if you can still eat the products that were previously listed. We want to reassure you that the gluten status of these products has not changed overnight and that we were previously given reassurance from manufacturers that any product listed on our services were tested and found to contain 20 ppm or less of gluten.

Whilst products previously listed are safe for a gluten free diet, we want to see greater support for the gluten free community and a public declaration on packaging committing to gluten free law from manufacturers and retailers. While this might seem like a negative step, it is to try and improve clarity for our community and help support greater choice in the long run.

What next?

We are speaking with manufacturers and retailers and asking them to commit to labelling these products gluten free, rather than only assuring us that they are suitable for a gluten free diet. This will make it easier for consumers to check if a product is gluten free and for us to keep our information up to date. Feedback from our community is really important to us, so we sent out a survey on the gluten free diet at the start of 2020. Thank you to everyone who joined in. You can read about the results and how they will shape our future work in the latest edition of Live Well Gluten Free magazine.

Remember, you can also contact the manufacturer’s or retailer’s Helpline to share your feedback on gluten free labelling directly.  

We hope this post has helped to shed some light on the issues surrounding barley malt extract and barley malt vinegar. For the latest updates on this topic, visit www.coeliac.org.uk/news.