You are guilty anyway — buckwheat flour causing recalls

In New Zealand the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) is working with several food businesses to recall products that contain buckwheat flour that has been found to contain gluten.

The affected buckwheat flour, supplied by Davis Food Ingredients, has been unwittingly used in products advertised as gluten-free or in products consumers consider to be gluten-free.

The products currently being recalled in NZ include:

• Bin Inn Retail Group Limited Buckwheat Flour
• CuisAnn brand heat and eat meals
• Gluten Free Choice brand bread
• Venerdi brand Gluten Freedom Fancier Sourdough Pizza Bases (400 g)

MPI and Davis Food Ingredients are working together to identify the food businesses that have been supplied the contaminated flour and have said that while the trace back work is largely complete there could still be further recalls.

Buckwheat does not contain gluten and is a regular ingredient in foods labelled as ‘gluten-free’ and marketed to coeliac disease sufferers and those who are gluten intolerant.

Food manufacturers are responsible for managing the unintentional inclusions of allergens in their products. To this end MPI’s manager food compliance services group, Melinda Sando, said: “This is a reminder to all food businesses to ensure they have robust supplier approval processes in place and that suppliers provide evidence of any claims they are making about the presence or absence of allergens.”

Food importers must provide clear and accurate information on the allergen status of imported products and ingredients. Food retailers must provide information on allergen content that may be present directly and/or indirectly on foods.

Incorrect allergen labelling can be deadly. While the ’fashionably’ gluten intolerant may have mild bloating after consuming an unlabelled allergen, those who are allergic to the ingredient may need urgent medical attention or even die following exposure. The responsibility for this lies with the manufacturer and importer, which is why MPI is asking the importer how it came to pass that the buckwheat flour they sold contained gluten and what measures they have put in place to prevent the same thing happening again.

As always it seems somewhat unreasonable that the companies that inadvertently had gluten in their products, and therefore contravened labelling law, are named and shamed in the recall and the importer is named but the actual supplier/manufacturer of the product isn’t. The responsibility for finding that the buckwheat flour had gluten in it is down to the importer and the food manufacturer.