Long term readers of Gluten Free by the Sea may well remember my blog post about Tetley Green Tea being contaminated with gluten. At the time this caused much shock and surprise in the coeliac community, and after it made me ill I have avoided it since. Last week I was tipped off by Kim at Coeliac Delight that the problem may at last be resolved.
I followed this up with Tetley who have come back with this response today:
“I have spoken with our Compliance and Regulatory Team who can confirm that the accidental cross contamination is now resolved. This means that we have found the cause and worked with suppliers to prevent any reoccurrence and we have eliminated any affected tea from our Supply Chain.
We have now removed this warning from our packs and these are filtering through the distribution system although there are still many packs in the market place and on shelf that do carry the warning so, at the moment, it would be better to check packs as you buy them.”
So it appears there is light at the end of the tunnel. I checked stock in my local Sainsbury’s last weekend and they still carried the warning. Please be vigilant and make sure you check packs before purchasing, but the good news is that new boxes of Tetley Green Tea hitting the supply chain will be gluten free. Note, the previous issue affected all blends of Tetley Green Tea.
Thanks to Tetley for the update and for getting this sorted, and to Kim for letting me know.
Kevin, Gluten Free by the Sea
Hi Kevin glad it’s resolved although TBH I never knew about it! Thankfully I drink Twinnings Green with Lemon 🙂
A good choice, me too! 🙂
Green Tea contains gluten? Whatever next! I had a similar scare when I spotted a warning about nuts on herbal teas, can’t remember the company, but this was caused by an over zealous web editor who wrongly flagged teas as a cross contamination potential when they were not at all. I am glad you can now enjoy a green tea. I love it and when I spotted this blog post I was in fact, drinking a mug of, yes you guessed it, green tea. I have it really weak and I think the ones I’m drinking were from Aldi no less.
I’ve been safely enjoying other brands, but it’s good to know that others will not get caught out by Tetley as I did when I wrote my original post! It simply never occurred to me to even check the box at the time