Saturday, January 28, 2012

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Manitoba Harvest - No Longer Labelled Gluten Free

My Question:

Though I understand you use a dedicated facility that DOES NOT process any dairy, soy, nut or gluten products, I want to check to see if you know if the seeds are registering detectable with gluten. We are advocating for the safety of our customers both retail and wholesale. Thank you so much for your time!

Manitoba Harvest's Answer:

Thank you for contacting Manitoba Harvest and thinking of hemp foods! For over a decade Manitoba Harvest has strived to deliver the highest quality hemp food products to our valued customers and supporters. Every load of hemp seed that is delivered to our facility is tested for gluten. Gluten tests can fluctuate from lot-to-lot. In August we moved to a more accurate protocol for gluten testing. Our parts per million gluten tests are now +/- accuracy of 5 parts per million (versus our previous accuracy of +/- 10, which I believe is an industry standard).

Hemp seed is naturally gluten free. However, even one kernel of wheat or barley amongst 50,000 hemp seeds can potentially result in a positive test for gluten. As a vertically integrated (from field to consumer) company, this one kernel/seed could be inadvertently introduced at any point – during harvest, seed cleaning, or delivery to our facility. This potential concerns us greatly. As such do not claim that our products are gluten free. You will notice we have removed the gluten free statement on our labels and instead state: “This product is made at a hemp dedicated facility that does NOT process any dairy, soy, nut or gluten products.”

We are aggressively looking for processes and methodologies that would provide us with certainties on gluten free.

Date of Response: 1/4/11