Gluten-Free Labeling of Food Products

Appendix II

Moderator’s Guide

Gluten-Free Labeling of Food Products Focus Groups

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Opening Remarks – Introductions and Rules

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Ice Breaker (5 min.)

Moderator: Let’s go around the room and introduce ourselves. Please tell me your first name, and a little bit about you and your experience with celiac disease or gluten intolerance or tell me about the person with celiac disease or gluten intolerance for whom you prepare foods or buy groceries. How have you dealt with it?

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Diets

Moderator: Do you (or other person) follow a gluten-free (GF) diet? How long have you followed a GF diet? What is a GF diet? How do you follow a GF diet? What are the challenges involved in following a GF diet? Do you ever eat foods that contain gluten?

Gluten-free in general

Moderator: Tonight’s discussion is going to be about gluten-free (GF), specifically, gluten-free labeling (15 min.)

1. What do you think of when you hear the following statements: made in GF facility, or not made in a facility that processes gluten-containing foods?

2. Why types of foods do you think are inherently GF or GF by nature?

How to better label GF

Moderator: Because GF labels have not been formally regulated by the FDA, we want to hear some of your input on this issue (15 min.)

3. Do you think the following messages mean that the all foods of the same type are also GF? E.g., “Milk, a GF food” as compared to “All milk is GF”. What alternative wording would better convey the same message?

4. Do you think that the GF labeling claim is necessary for all or just certain inherently GF foods to indicate that all foods of the same type are also GF? If the answer is for just certain inherently GF foods, what foods are these?

5. Do you think the inclusion of additional information (e.g., does not contain 20 micrograms or more gluten per gram of food) on food labels will help you better understand the term GF?

[Pass out food labels]

The combination of a GF labeling claim

Moderator: Food labels sometimes contain several claims or advisory statements. Please let us know your likes and dislikes about them (10 min.)

6. Should the word “wheat” appear in the ingredients list or in a separate “Contains” statement?

7. Should the label use a voluntary advisory statement (e.g., processed in a facility with gluten-containing foods or may contain traces of gluten)?

Reduced-Gluten

Moderator: We have been talking about gluten-free. Now I want to ask some questions about other kinds of claims about the amount of gluten in a food (10 min.).

8. What does the claim “reduced gluten” mean to you if you or one of your family members is following a GF diet?

9. Do you think it is necessary to require additional information on the food labels so that the consumers won’t be misled by the claim “reduced gluten”? For example, one slice of this wheat starch bread contains [X number] micrograms gluten or [X fraction or portion of] the gluten in a slice of regular wheat flour bread?

GF is not a static concept

Moderator: If a food like a dried soup mix as packaged was not GF, but when the soup was prepared according to instructions with the addition of water would be considered GF, then how should the statement appear on the label of that food (10 min.)?

10. Can the instructions say that the food was GF when prepared according to instructions? If so, where and how should the statement appear on the label of that food?

11. What other suggestions/questions do you have in terms of GF labeling?

Thank you, those are all the questions I have.