Achievements and accomplishments

In the beginning there were
tough conditions for celiacs

In 1988 strict exclusion of gluten in your diet was extremely difficult. This was a consequence of the inadequate labeling of food. Something we today almost take for granted when shopping for groceries.

There was also a movement from the food industry to start using wheat protein in all kinds of food, for example in meat, ice cream, and candy.  This is mainly for technological and economic reasons. Any ingredient that made up less than 25% of the whole food product could be omitted from the ingredient labels.

At this time the EU also was starting to form a single market that would allow goods to move freely between countries. Since food labeling laws were very different among the European countries, this could cause even greater problems for coeliacs to identify food that may contain gluten.

For this reason, Matilda Torralba from one of the Spanish coeliac societies, residing in Barcelona, wrote a letter in June 1988 calling for a European “come together meeting” for coeliac societies. In December that year, the Association of European Coeliac Societies (AOECS) was founded in Rome.

Since then, AOECS has been working to support all national coeliac societies in our quest to raise awareness and understanding of coeliac disease, to make it easier for people with this condition to find a great variety of safe and nutritious gluten-free food products.

AOECS function has for over three decades been the international voice representing not only the nearly 300 000 members of all 40 national member societies, but also everyone who needs to eat a gluten-free diet. Every day.

1991

A big win for AOECS was when we received observer status in Codex Alimentarius Commission. This is an international organization tied to the United Nations that works to protect consumer health and promote fair practice in the food trade. They develop standards, guidelines, and codes of practice for the food industry.

Codex observers come from intergovernmental- and non-governmental organizations as well as public and private organizations. They all play a vital role in ensuring Codex committee’s suggestions are of the highest quality and give Codex legitimacy.

The background for this was a request from AOECS and the Austrian Coeliac Society the Austrian government to raise the subject of inadequate ingredient labeling of food at the Codex Alimentarius Commission session in Rome.

An investigation on this issue was initiated and AOECS contributed to this work. It ended up in a proposal from the Codex Committee on Nutrition and Foods for Special Dietary Uses that products that contain cereals with gluten should always be declared on labels.

This led to several discussions over the years on how to improve the Codex General Standard for the Labelling of Prepackaged Foods which was finally ratified in 1999.

1994

The EU is considering permitting 30% wheat dilution of cacao to reduce import costs. AOECS is protesting strongly against this and the use of wheat gluten in other foods for technological and economic reasons.

1996

The Codex Committee on Nutrition and Food for Special Dietary Uses proposes that the threshold of gluten content should be set to 20 ppm for food that is naturally gluten-free and to 200 ppm for rendered gluten-free products. AOECS had a protruding role in writing the text for the proposal.

Despite pressure from the food industry against labeling wheat starch, the EU stands firm in persisting that it must be labeled. AOECS continues to lobby and writes a letter to the EU commissioner for Agriculture requesting improvements in labeling.

1999

An important year.

First of all, the Codex Alimentarius Commission adopted a new worldwide Food Labelling Standard stating that ingredients and additives in food that contain gluten shall always be labeled without exceptions. This is a major win for AOECS who has been working and lobbying for this since 1991.

The Codex Alimentarius Commission also changed the rule that if a gluten-containing ingredient made up less than 25% of the total mass it did not have to be declared on the package. Since gluten was known to cause hypersensitivity, it had to be put on the label without exemptions if such an ingredient was part of the product.

Secondly, Dr. Mendez developed the ELISA R5 method for analyzing how much gluten content there is in food products. This test method will later become the standard for testing food products for gluten levels. Over 1 000 supposedly gluten-free products were tested and 80% contained less than 100 ppm gluten which was the test limit. 20% contained more, some up to 400 ppm.

2003

Improvements to the Codex Standard for naturally gluten-free products were no gluten coating or other gluten-containing processing aids are allowed for cheese. For chocolate products, no flour or starch with gluten should be used for manufacturing.

Another improvement was to avoid the transfer of genes known to elicit gluten-sensitive enteropathy (coeliac disease) into GMO foods. This was an advance for us since research on inserting wheat genes into rice was being performed. The motive for this research was to make rice more suitable for baking but would have had restricted the diet for coeliacs considerably.

EU issues directive 2003/89/EC where gluten remains on the allergen list. The directive specifies that substances containing gluten that are used as processing aids and still present in the end product have to be declared, even if in an altered form.

2008

Codex Alimentarius Commission finally adopted the Codex Standard for Foods for Special Dietary Uses for Persons Intolerant to Gluten after a 17-year discussion in its Committee on Nutrition and Foods for Special Dietary Uses. A standard for gluten intolerant people is finally in place.

AOECS is awarded participation in EU-funded projects CD-Medics and PreventCD.

2009

Harmonized rules on information about which products can be labeled with gluten-free or very low gluten content is issued by the EU in regulation 41/2009. Products containing 20 ppm of gluten or lower can be labeled as “gluten-free”, whereas products ranging from 20 up to 100 ppm can be labeled with “very low gluten” content.

Later resolution 828/2014 supersedes this one but with very small additions. The main message is that people intolerant to gluten should be helped to identify and choose a varied diet when eating inside or outside the home.

2015

AOECS decides to abolish the possibility to label ELS licensed food with from 21 – 100 ppm content of gluten. These goods had previously worn a special mark for showing “very low gluten content” but from now only products with 20 ppm content of gluten or below is allowed to wear the Crossed Grain Trademark.

One question we often get is why the limit is set to 20 ppm of gluten for products labeled “gluten-free”. Why not zero? This is because it is the lowest level that can be consistently detected in foods using valid scientific analytical tools.

Studies also show that eating normal amounts of food containing 20 ppm gluten or less should mean that you will consume less than 10 mg of gluten every day which is considered to be safe for people with coeliac disease.

2017

The number of products in the AOECS governed European Licensing System continues to grow. Now the number of controlled products surpass 17 000. AOECS also discovered 38 attempted infringements of using the Crossed Grain Symbol without authorization. All of these were reported and disputed.

A survey on consumer trust for the Crossed Grain Trademark symbol was performed this year. 78 % of the consumers responded that they trust products with this mark more than those bearing only a gluten-free claim.

AOECS attended three Codex meetings. The most important decision was to wait with the adoption of a new test for the detection of gluten content called the G12-method until more comparable data is available.

AOECS starts partnerships with the European Society for Paediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition (ESPGHAN) and the European Society for Study of Coeliac Disease (ESsCD).

2021

AOECS enters a partnership with the food safety company BRCGS allowing their Gluten-Free Certification Standard to be accepted as a part of the process when food producers want to become authorized users of the Crossed Grain Trademark.

A new website for AOECS is launched.