It seems like everyone’s talking about gluten-free these days and more and more companies are offering everything gluten-free from bread to soap. So, here’s where we stand.

We hold three compassionate and earth-friendly values for our company: vegan, organic and fair-trade. In addition, Allison is insistent that everything we offer meets her high standards for gourmet taste perfection. These four principles guide her in everything she creates. A few years ago Allison dreamed of developing wheat-free and hopefully gluten-free vegan baked goods, and she refused to compromise our principles. Most importantly the new versions had to be better than the cookies and brownies we were already making with wheat flour. She searched and searched and we recipe- and taste-tested various alternative flours for over a year. Most fell far short of our expectations for taste and texture. Finally, Allison tested oat flour and was astonished. It had the perfect texture and tasted better than wheat flour; we were ecstatic. Then she discovered a slight problem. Oats and wheat are often grown and transported side-by-side and almost always processed in the same facilities. After extensive research, she found that we could either have certified organic oat flour, or certified gluten-free oat flour, but not both. As aforementioned, we’re committed to organic ingredients. Just as we would never consider using animal products in any of our goodies, we weren’t about to compromise our values by using non-organic oat flour, even though that would mean our cookies and brownies could be certified gluten-free.

To further complicate the issue, even certified gluten-free oat flour contains its own oat protein called avenin, which is similar to wheat protein (gluten) and some people (especially those with celiac disease) react to it in a similar way. So, the official word on our cookies and brownies: they are wheat-free, but not certified gluten-free, and since all of our products are made in the same facility, this goes for everything we make, even the products that have no flour in them at all like our hot cocoa and vegan toffee.

So, if you’re avoiding wheat, or even if you’re avoiding gluten but are only slightly sensitive to it, you are welcome to enjoy all of our goodies without repercussions. If you’re strictly avoiding gluten, or are sensitive to it, our fudge, confections and vegan chocolates are perfect. If you’re very allergic to gluten or have celiac disease, as much as we would love to share our goodies with you, your health is more important and we wouldn’t want you to risk it.

Hopefully that clears up any confusion and you can now choose the goodies that best fit all your needs!