Oatly and Gluten

Obviously, we need to deal with the most obvious thing first, do Oatly products contain gluten or not?  

The simple answer is that it depends on which market you’re on. In the US our products are certified gluten free (as they are made with Canadian gluten free oats), but on all other markets they are not. On those markets we can however guarantee that our products contain a maximum of 100 parts per million (mg/kg product) gluten.  

And now you might be thinking – but aren’t oats naturally gluten free? Yes, but while oats in itself is free from gluten proteins, it may be contaminated from grains containing gluten during harvesting, transport, production etc. 
 
To add slightly more to the confusion around gluten – when talking about it on a global scale, the legislations (and with that - limits) limits for calling a product gluten free differs on different markets. So, we always recommend checking with your health care professional and your local food and safety authorities to be sure you have the relevant information.  

Why not just use gluten free oats on all markets?  

The thing is, it’s quite the process to create gluten free products. The raw materials needed (gluten free oats) are much more expensive in most markets than the oats we use now, and the strictly regulated environment that would be needed in the production facilities would require a huge rebuild of our production.  

And since our mission is to make it easy for people to eat better and live healthier lives without recklessly taxing the planet’s resources in the process (take a shot of oat drink every time you hear us say that), we want to avoid making our products even more expensive than their dairy counterparts than they already are. This way we can get plant based products to more people and scale more quickly, which is the most efficient way to tackle climate change today in our opinion.   

Will Oatly ever have gluten free products on other markets than the US?

It’s not super likely the way it looks now, but maybe! Please send good energy and thoughts to the oat monster that lives in the Oatly lake (also known as the all powerful Oatly lord). 

That being said, gluten will never not be on our minds. Sometimes we even dream about the small protein at night when we’re recharging for another day of carb loading on oats. So, we’ll end this with saying that we don’t currently have any specific plans to launch gluten free products on more markets than we have now, but who knows what the future holds.