Gluten is a class of seed storage protein found in rye, barley, oats and wheat. Gluten testing can detect the presence of gluten in various food products, serving a fundamental role in ensuring the safety and compliance of food items with gluten-related regulations.

It is important to note that the test used can’t detect gluten from oats and this is reflected in the relevant New Zealand / Australian Standard that covers gluten free claims and labelling.

This Standard is Australia New Zealand Food Standards Code – Standard 1.2.7 – Nutrition, health and related claims. 

This standard states that for a food to be labelled as gluten free, the food must not contain -

(a) detectable gluten; or

(b) oats or their products; or

(c) cereals containing gluten that may have been malted, or their products.

AsureQuality can test for gluten in food, ingredients/raw materials, and swab samples. Swab samples must be submitted using the relevant swab-only gluten test variation where available.

Instructions for using allergen swabbing kit

Gluten competitive test

The gluten competitive test is alternative test specifically for fermented and hydrolysed products, including beer, starch, malt extract, sour dough, vinegar, soy sauce, kombucha and cider. The fermentation and hydrolysis processes do not completely break down the gluten so these products may contain peptide fragments that can be potentially toxic to people with coeliac disease. The gluten competitive test detects the presence of these fragments which can’t be detected using the “normal” gluten test (NT-GLTN01).

LOD / LOQ

Below is the LOD (Limit of Detection) and LOQ (Limit of Quantification) for the gluten testing provided by AsureQuality.