Food labelling: gluten free, organic etc.

karadekoolaid

karadekoolaid

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I've just had a long meeting with a marketing expert/entrepreneur. We were discussing my chutneys/hot sauces and he asked " are these products gluten free?"
( I thought "well of course they are; they're made with fresh fruit, vinegar and spices")
However, I asked "why is that important?" and he answered " it's like a flower to a bee - it attracts people. Discerning buyers will always look at a product that says "organic", "gluten free" or "vegan/vegetarian", regardless of whether they are gluten intolerant, vegan or vegetarian. It's become a trigger for people to buy things"
Great - I learned something new today.
The point is, on that coffee we've got the trigger words "organic" and "no artifical preservatives".
Interesting, eh?
 
The gluten thing I think is utterly irrelevant unless you struggle to digest gluten but the organic and no artificial preservatives I’m totally on board with. The closer to home made the better.

I should maybe mention that you need to be careful about any vinegars you’re using. They are not all gluten free.
 
SandwichShortOfAPicnic said:
The gluten thing I think is utterly irrelevant
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That's exactly what the guy said. It's irrelevant - but it attracts people to the product, regardless. Sounds a little cruel to me, exploiting those who have a genuine allergy, but apparently, it works on a marketing/sales basis.
I'll have a look at my vinegars. Thanks!
 
karadekoolaid said:
That's exactly what the guy said. It's irrelevant - but it attracts people to the product, regardless. Sounds a little cruel to me, exploiting those who have a genuine allergy, but apparently, it works on a marketing/sales basis.
I'll have a look at my vinegars. Thanks!
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I don’t mind it being plastered on the front, it means I don’t have to faff my way through the small print on the back 😂
 
Barriehie said:
Or take a picture with your phone to enlarge it...
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I can read them 😂 it’s just the ingredients list is always rather long and takes a minute to thoroughly read where as a fat label on the front declaring them GLUTEN FREE is instant.

Plus Mr SSOAP will latch onto that front label and occasionally come home with something he’s seen because it says ‘Gluten Free’ on the front which is nice.
 
SatNavSaysStraightOn said:
Just wait until they start advertising that water is vegan. How many people will stop buying it because it has that word "vegan" on it!
:laugh:
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Yeah, here labeling something gluten-free or vegan is a marketing failure - it’s interpreted by the omnivores as “This is a lesser product to be avoided at all costs, and let me buy this basket of rocks so I can wait outside and stone to death whoever buys these things!”
 
SandwichShortOfAPicnic said:
It’s two fold here. Sometimes ‘Gluten Free’ can also be telling you this will not taste good 😂

They often get around that by putting the word ‘Naturally’ above it.
Naturally Gluten Free is declaring it’s gluten free but we didn’t ruin it trying to make it gluten free 😆
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Sounds like SatNavSaysStraightOn naturally gluten free water...
 
A lot of people are all about buzzwords and I have no doubt this is true, as those labels are all over the place. I even see packs of fresh meat advertised as "gluten free", which is like calling water "wet". As to the ones you mentioned, I equate "gluten free" with "not as good", so I often specifically don't buy things with that label. Likewise, when I see "vegan/vegetarian", which I am definitely not. "Organic" equates to "more expensive" in my mind, so I immediately begin to look for something cheaper.

On the other hand, "Contains no high fructose corn syrup, no added sugar, no artificial colors, etc." is exactly the type of thing I look for and so I am attracted to those products, at least enough to read the label to make sure there's no other garbage in there, or sort out which brand has the least.
 
Oreos are rather famously (among those who follow such things) vegan. If Nabisco slapped “Vegan” in a big cartoony font on the front of the package, instead of discreetly on the back, their sales would plummet.

It’s a shame, really, as if a person otherwise has no dietary restrictions, it should just come down to taste (balanced with any other benefits), so an automatic dismissal without trying something first, or at least enough of something similar first, is a little narrow-minded.

One of my nieces and her husband follow a vegan diet, and when they visit, if the suggestion is a vegan restaurant for a family meal, several of the family simply won’t go. However, the family has no problem with expecting my niece and her husband to eat at a “normal” restaurant - “What’s the problem? There’s a salad on the menu!”

There are plenty of things that’re GF or vegan as a matter of course (calling back to those Oreos), but if that’s pointed out…a whole lotta people are going to give them a miss.
 
Brines, marinades and plain old cross contamination can all make meat no longer gluten free.

A packet of plain uncooked no other ingredient meat is usually fine but it’s easy to get caught out.
Especially by ham and gammon where you’ll find wheat starch thrown in.

Cooked meats often contain gluten.

I’ve been caught out a number of times when I’ve been in a rush and bought something I’ve bought before to discover it’s no longer plain meat, that happens to me in Spain more than in the UK.

The only way to guarantee your meat is only meat is to find and read the ingredients label on the back.

Salmon is the one that gets on my pip most. Salmon is commonly fed wheat and while the flesh is going to be gluten free the risk of cross contamination in the preparation is moderate-high so they’ll never state it’s gluten free.

I ordered escargot while out on one occasion and a waiter (whose girlfriend was a coeliac) came over to tell me snails are not gluten free. They are fed on wheat and while they’re purged it was highly likely they still contained some gluten. FFS.

Another occasion a chef and hotel manager were standing next to an enormous piece of roast beef they’d cooked.
I asked if it was gluten free, they sneered at me and said “ITS BEEF” like I was a total moron. I politely said oh ok so just checking was the joint coated with anything before you seared it?
“YES”
So what did you use? He proudly announced a mix of mustard flour and…. yep flour.

So yer gluten turns up in all sorts of unexpected places and one thing I’ve learnt over the years is what’s plastered on the front of a package and the actual ingredients written on the back can be wildly different, so unless you read the little writing on the back of the packaging you really don’t know what you’re eating.
 
TastyReuben said:
...
It’s a shame, really, as if a person otherwise has no dietary restrictions, it should just come down to taste (balanced with any other benefits), so an automatic dismissal without trying something first, or at least enough of something similar first, is a little narrow-minded.
...
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Kind of close this.

Excluding myself, my family members are all pretty affluent. I've never cared much for massive bank accounts and multiple properties with loads of stuff and that's all they've pursued. So, it's amusing to watch these material people bow to the expectation of their class peers when it comes to eating. Despite liking liver, they all do, they'll never order it out somewhere since it doesn't cost $20+/lb. 🤣 Fast food restaurants, wrappers in their cars but they'll never, amongst themselves, suggest it as a food stop. Narrow minded...
 
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