Cider, wine, sherry, spirits, port and liqueurs are gluten free.

Experts agree that there is no physical way that pure distilled alcohol can contain gluten - this is because the gluten protein cannot travel through to the vapour produced by the prolonged heating in the distillation process and become part of the final alcohol product.

Distilled spirits only contain gluten if gluten containing ingredients are added after the distillation process and in this case, there is labelling legislation that ensures the product states CONTAINS wheat, barley, rye or oats on the label.

Our Food and Drink Information Service gives you reliable, independent and timely product information to live well gluten free and it includes: 

• regular food alerts and product updates
• new product launches, with exclusive member only offers  
• tried and tested recipes 
• product ingredients and nutritional information
• product suitability from nearly 150,000 gluten free and mainstream food and drink products. 

Increase in product recalls reflects increase in product availability in retail and most product alerts relate to mislabelling rather than problems with contamination. Both prescribed and non-prescribed products have to meet regulatory standards and in fact most companies supplying to the NHS also provide retail products. Contamination risks need to be properly controlled regardless of supply chain.

Walkers cannot guarantee that any of their crisps are suitable for people following a gluten-free diet.

The law on gluten-free labelling means a strict criteria has to be met if manufacturers want to indicate the suitability of their foods for people with coeliac disease.

In order to label ‘gluten-free’ or ‘suitable for coeliacs’ products would have to ensure that they contain no more than 20 parts per million gluten. As Walkers cannot meet this requirement, they have removed their ‘suitable for coeliacs’ label. In addition, they have added an advisory statement on packs that states that the crisp products have been made in a factory where there are gluten-containing ingredients.

You can contact Walkers directly for more information by calling their careline on 0800 980 8235.

We do not have gluten levels for the products in Section 2. The products in Section 2 are not specialist products and the manufacturers do not provide test results. They do not contain any gluten in the ingredients list and manufacturers follow advice from the Food Standards Agency on assessing and managing the risk of cross contamination with allergens including gluten containing cereals.

If you are unsure whether you can eat a particular product you can scan the bar code using our Live Well Gluten Free app or read the ingredients label. For more information on reading labels why not check out our labelling video that is produced in association with the Food Standard Agency. 

Manufacturers sometimes change their ingredients without notifying us. Please call us on 0333 332 2033, selecting option 2, or email us on foodanddrink@coeliac.org.uk so that we can follow this up. To assist with your query we will need the following information: brand and product name, pack size, barcode number and the nature of your query e.g may contain statement, contains wheat etc. 

We have spoken to the manufacturers of Tetley tea bags following concerns about the labelling on some of their green tea bags stating that they may contain gluten.

The manufacturer has told us that there is a risk of contamination with wheat gluten during production. They have labelled these products as a precautionary measure due to a risk of contamination in the tea bag. Any trace of gluten in the tea bag will be diluted in the brewed tea, so the level of gluten in the tea you are drinking will be well within the safe level for people with coeliac disease (20 parts per million or less).

Tetley are investigating the issue and trying to remove the risk of contamination. Once this is done they plan to remove the statement from the packaging, so you may see a mixture of packs on store shelves with and without the warning.

We understand how difficult it might be to manage without prescriptions. Gluten free staple foods like bread are key products in managing the diet from both a nutritional and practical standpoint so more care will be needed.

We are trying to make it easier by providing advice for managing a gluten free diet on a budget.

Fresh yeast is naturally gluten free. We are now aware of some brands of dried yeasts that now contain wheat starch in the ingredients so they are not gluten free. We therefore now list dried yeasts in the Food & Drink Information Service that do not contain gluten.