Amy's Kitchen Products

I recieved this statement in an email yesterday from Amy's Kitchen. I noticed that most of their boxes claimed to have no gluten ingredients but they did not say Gluten-Free. I contacted them to find out what they meant by this statement. Were the products contaminated since they used the same equipment to process wheat. Here's their response.

"From Amy's:
Our gluten free products contain only the ingredients listed in the ingredient statement. There are no hidden, unlabeled ingredients. We understand that it is critical that these products be free of gluten and we take this very seriously.

A wide range of activities and cross-checks are completed to ensure that cross-contamination and/or inadvertent use of the wrong ingredient does not occur.

Examples include:

-Full shift manufacture of products with complete clean-up of all food contact surfaces between products. Pieces of equipment that come in contact with the food are cleaned and sanitized prior to the manufacture of the next product.

-Separate item numbers for all ingredients; these are checked by two individuals on receipt of the ingredient and three people on use of the ingredient to confirm the correct item is used.

-Use of colored tags, papers and containers in production as an addition visual check to ensure intermediate components are not interchanged.

-Designated areas for flour use to control airborne gluten and minimize its spread.

-Bar code readers at packaging lines to ensure correct package is used with each product.

-Spot screening of ingredients and finished products at University of Nebraska (FARRP - Food Allergy Research and Resource Program) to confirm there are no unlabeled allergens (utilize tests for gluten, soy, milk and peanuts)."

I'm sure it was written by lawyers but it did make me feel better about using their products.

More later...