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Cleaning/Inspection Process
We maintain our own certified planting seed, and personally contracted
with "Seedsmen" who have not grown any wheat, rye or barley
on their land for the last 2 years and who use their combines for
only Gluten Free Oats® or non gluten crops. Each field is completely
walked at least three times to make sure that no volunteer glutinous
products are growing in the field.
The fields and all harvesting equipment is inspected by Gluten Free
Oats® us and the Wyoming Seed Certification Service to assure
they are free of the offending grains. Before any of the oats can
be unloaded it must pass 3 tests (#1 White board Magnifying Glass
Visual, #2 RidaQuick test down to 5 ppm, and #3 the Elisa R5 RidaScreen
test down to 3 ppm). In addition to our own laboratory testing we
also send samples to the University of Nebraska's Food Allergy Research
and Resource Program (www.farrp.org) to be tested for gluten to
assure the oats are gluten-free.
Our oats are stored and transported by equipment the owners of Gluten
Free Oats® personally inspect and make sure that they are dedicated
to us or certified clean. Our oats are cleaned and hulled in a facility
that is dedicated to non gluten products, and then transported by
us in food grade tote sacks to our new steaming, rolled and packaging
plant. This facility is a new, state-of-the-art line that is dedicated
to handling only Gluten Free Oats®.
In comparison, if you examine what it takes to process oats from
planting to product you can see that any one of the following steps
will affect the ability to call it "gluten free" and will
make a person sick.
- The planting seed and field purity is essential. Is the seed
that is planted what was left over from last year or certified
seed?
- Was the farmer's equipment also used to plant wheat, rye or
barley?
- Did the field have volunteer gluten crops in this year's production,
because last year's crop rotation was wheat, rye or barley?
- Did the adjoining fields have gluten crops and cause cross contamination?
- Could the crop be contaminated because of irrigation water contamination
with volunteer gluten crops?
- Did the farmer use shared equipment to harvest other gluten
crops?
- Are the trucks used to transport only gluten free grain to the
farmer's bins or elevator?
- Are the augers used to unload trucks or move the grain from
the truck to the farmer's storage bin or the elevator cross contaminated
by other grains?
- Did the oats get moved on a railcar or truck that cross-contaminated
it from elevator to processing plant?
- Coming from the railcar or truck did it get cross contamination
on shared unloading equipment?
- Were the oats cross-contaminated in the processing plant on
shared cleaning equipment?
- Unless the rolling equipment in the plant is dedicated to only
GLUTEN FREE OATS then it will be contaminated.
- After it is processed could it have been cross contaminated
on shared packaging equipment?
Is it worth the risk to serve any other oats to your family?
Gluten Free Oats Certifications
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