Online gift hamper food orders

[FionaGFG]

Be aware this Christmas that if you or your loved ones are ordering food hampers or gift sets online that they don't always list the allergens. We recently reported an item that was delivered to us as a present and didn't list gluten as an allergen on a leading retailer's website. Yet when it arrived the item came with a full ingredients label and gluten was listed (luckily we read all labels by habit before we eat but newbie coeliacs may easily have been caught out).

We contacted The Food Standard's agency and they have confirmed to us that there is currently - no legal requirement for any online food retailers to list allergens in their foods sets. The good news is this will change over the next few years. However, if an item is listing ingredients in full then these have to list allergens. So watch out before you buy expensive gift sets for relatives or vice versa. Instead consider supporting small local suppliers that specialise in Free From hampers and such like.

We're awaiting the outcome of our recent complaint to Trading Standards and will keep you posted.

[vince]

Thank you for all your hard work