I recently purchased a bottle of Drew’s All natural Smoked Tomato Dressing and Marinade at my local Ollie’s. The bottle was labeled gluten free. hen I went to use it I noticed that it had a disclaimer stating that the dressing is made on shared equipment with many known allergens including wheat. I am super careful with what I eat and avoid anything processed in a facility or manufactured on equipment shared with wheat. This dressing looked exceptionally tasty so I decided to email Drew’s and ask about there processes and the possibility of cross contamination. Here is my email to Drew’s and the response that followed.

“Hi,

I was about to use your Drew’s Smoked Tomato Dressing and Quick Marinade. I see that it is labeled gluten free, but it states that it is made on shared equipment with wheat. Is there a possibility of cross contamination from the wheat? If so how is it labeled gluten free? I would like to use it on my chicken tonight, but am celiac and do not want to get sick.

Thank you,

Laurie”

Drew responded within the hour which was quite impressive.

“Dear Laurie,

Thank you for taking the time to write to us regarding our Smoked Tomato Salad Dressing.

At Drew’s, we take our responsibility of eliminating the risk of allergen cross-contamination and ensuring the safety of consumers very seriously.  Drew’s has implemented a number of comprehensive standard operating procedures for the handling of known allergens, including but not limited to:  employee training, separate storage areas for allergen products, and an allergen cleaning/sanitation cycle of all equipment between production batches.  Following the allergen clean, we test for the presence of allergens (soy, gluten, milk, coconut or egg) prior to the next production run.  This ensures the cleanliness of our production equipment and the absence of known allergens.  As an added precaution, we schedule our allergen items for production on separate days or at the end of the day whenever possible.

In addition, our facility is SQF (Safe Quality Food) Certified and items which are labeled as Gluten Free have been certified to be in compliance by the GFCO (Gluten Free Certification Organization – http://www.gfco.org/).  Both of these certifications require very strict adherence to our aforementioned allergen control procedures.  Audits and inspections are performed by the certifying agencies to verify our system’s effectiveness.

We appreciate your taking the time to write us – please rest assured that we share your concerns and have taken the appropriate steps to keep our consumers safe as they enjoy our delicious Drew’s All-Natural and Organic Salad Dressings and Salsas.

Should you have further questions or concerns, please do not hesitate in contacting our office.”

I was glad for the quick response but decided to give the product to Alan’s mom and go with something that I knew was without a doubt safe.

I know many people have different severities of gluten intolerance and different levels of comfort with gluten free products in general. I tend to be on the strict side but am really interested in how the rest of the gluten free community feels on the subject.

My question to you all is whether you eat products with statements of processed in a facility that contains wheat, or made on equipment shared with wheat, ect.  Please let me know how you feel on the subject in the comments section below.