When I heard Oreos was going to release a gluten free Oreo this year, I was equal parts excited and skeptical. I was not actually an Oreo fan growing up; I found the chocolate to bitter for my taste. I wasn’t allowed a lot of chocolate/sweets as a kid, so if I was getting chocolate, I wanted it to be really good. Oreos never did it for me.
But then came gluten-free living and my dessert options declined dramatically. So I gave Glutino’s Oreo-like cookie a try, and found them delicious! Maybe my limited options made the bitter-chocolate sandwich cookie part more appealing; maybe it was my taste changing as I got older. But either way, I was hooked. When I saw the real Oreo brand was making a GF one, I wanted a chance to try it to see how it compared to Glutino.
A chance I never got and will never take.
Why? Because the parent company for Oreo is not transparent. They are super frustrating to deal with; having contacted them more than once well before I ever heard about their gluten free Oreo. And who is the parent company? Mondelēz International .
As late as December 2020, Mondelēz International told me, “At this time we don’t have official information about Gluten-Free Oreos.” The product was a few short months away from being released. They really had no idea? Or they didn’t want to come clean about the ingredients before they hit the shelves? I think it’s the latter, because even sensible people will sometimes throw caution to the wind once a product is right in front of them . . . and I think that’s what Mondelez was banking on. Especially as the continue to refuse transparency about the status of the oat ingredient.
My reply to “no official information”:
This isn’t helpful at all. I’ve already seen package advertising and listings showing oat flour — which didn’t specify if it was purity protocol or not. And oat flour, even if PP, eliminates GF Oreos for all the Celiacs who can’t have any oats at all.
Everything I’ve read said they’re coming in January. That’s next month. How can you not have official info this close to a production release?
This response tells me you are NOT catering to the Celiac community and that the ‘gluten free’ Oreos won’t actually be. Sounds like you’re going down the dangerous path of General Mills — who, by the way, is still glutening people daily.
Their reply:
We understand how important it is for people who have been medically diagnosed with gluten sensitivity to have accurate information about foods to help plan their meals and diets. Gluten content can almost always be determined from the label, and the most accurate information can be found by checking the ingredient list on our packages.
Therefore, it has been a long standing policy for all Mondelez International and Nabisco products to list ingredients that contain gluten on the ingredient statement. For labeling purposes, Mondelez International includes Wheat, Barley, Oats or Rye as sources of gluten. Our packages identify gluten by listing these common sources. Other grains that contain gluten are: Triticale, Spelt, Kamut, Mir or Farina (also known as Far or Farro), and if these grains are included in our products, they will also be labeled.
However you should know that we do not guarantee that our products are gluten-free because we sometimes purchase flavoring, color or spice ingredients from suppliers who do not list every possible source of gluten beyond what is required by law.
For Mondelez International-branded products that contain vinegar, information from our vinegar suppliers assures us that the vinegar we use in our products is gluten free. All vinegar is distilled and through the distilling process protein gluten is removed.
I hope this assists you in making food choices that are appropriate for your personal needs. If you have additional questions about your personal dietary needs, please consult your doctor or a registered dietician.
Again, thank you for contacting us and we look forward to hearing from you again soon!
Please note the sentence I put in bold red for emphasis.
They got certified by GFCO, but they still state that they do not guarantee that their products are gluten free. Scary, no?
(Also, who else is sick of food companies telling us to consult our doctor or a registered dietician? Who has the money to do that for each and every product? And who has a doctor/dietician that actually knows enough about Celiac Disease to make that CYA statement actually helpful, were it not so expensive to see a doctor/dietician?)
So, thanks, Mondelēz International , but no thanks. I never tried these, I never will. I’ll be sticking with Glutino’s version.
(I also went around in circles with them about Swedish Fish, until they finally admitted the same – no guarantees.)
Here is what Gluten Dude currently has to say about this product.