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Getting Certified Gluten-Free

Certification is a third party telling your customer what you have been telling them yourself. It does not make a beer gluten-free — your grain and your process do that. It makes the claim legible to someone who has no reason to take your word for it.

GFCO — Gluten-Free Certification Organization — The product certification program. Covers foods, beverages, nutritionals, supplements and personal care items. Start here if you want a mark on the package.

GIG — Gluten Intolerance Group — GFCO's parent nonprofit, founded 1974. Also runs the Gluten-Free Food Service restaurant validation program and its searchable venue database, support groups, and education.

Labeling Rules — Certification is voluntary and private; labeling law is neither. Read both, because satisfying one does not satisfy the other.

Tier: Directory · Verified 4 August 2026 · Re-check every 6 months

What certification is, and is not​

A certification program audits your inputs, facility, and process, tests to its own threshold, and licenses a mark for your package. It is a standing relationship with ongoing surveillance, not a one-time test.

What it is not is a substitute for the trust chain. Certification verifies the chain exists and works. If the pre-fermentation evidence is not there, there is nothing to certify.

Right for you if you sell to people who buy on trust rather than on taste, which for gluten-free beer is most of the market. See Taste vs Safety vs Trust.

Probably not yet if you are pre-production or your supply chain is unsettled. Certification audits a process that exists.

The two names, and how they relate​

GFCO is the product certification program, and it is a program of GIG rather than a separate company. Their scope, in their own words: "Approved GFCO certification bodies can work with you to certify foods, beverages, nutritionals, supplements and personal care items to the GFCO Standard." Beverages are explicitly in scope.

Note the structure — GFCO sets the standard, and approved certification bodies do the certifying. You will work with one of those bodies, not with GFCO directly. Worth understanding before you start.

GIG is the parent nonprofit, founded in 1974. Beyond GFCO it runs a Gluten-Free Food Service program validating restaurants and food services, maintains a searchable database of validated venues, and runs local support groups and education.

That second half matters commercially even if you never certify: GIG is a place your customers already go, and the GFFS database is how a lot of gluten-free drinkers choose where to eat and drink.

Our experience​

Tier: Directory. We are describing what these programs are so you can decide whether to approach them. We have not taken a product through either recently enough to describe the current process from experience.

The fermented-product complication​

This is what catches brewers, and it is worth understanding before you apply.

Gluten certification generally rests on testing, and the standard assay does not read fermented products reliably — fermentation breaks gluten into fragments the test was not built to find. See Gluten Testing Methods and Their Limits.

So a beer's certification case has to be built on pre-fermentation inputs and process controls rather than a finished-product number. If you brew from grain that never contained gluten, that is a far stronger starting position than a barley beer treated with enzymes — but you still have to document it. Bring grain and malt evidence, not a finished-beer COA. Testing Without an In-House Lab covers where to get the upstream work done.

What the path looks like​

Broadly, and subject to the certifying body's specifics:

  1. Application, with product and facility detail
  2. Documentation review — ingredient specs, supplier documentation, allergen control plan, cleaning and changeover procedures
  3. Testing to the program's threshold, on material the assay can actually read
  4. Facility audit, on site
  5. Licence and mark, with ongoing surveillance and periodic re-audit
  6. Change notification — new supplier, new ingredient, new line, and you tell them

Budget for documentation being the long pole. Most of it is evidence you should already hold; the gap is usually that it is not organized.

What to ask before you apply​

What is the threshold, in ppm? GFCO certifies to the GFCO Standard, which sets its own limit — and it is not the FDA's 20 ppm. The current figure is not stated on their public landing pages, so get it in writing from the certification body before you plan around it.

Do you certify fermented beverages, and how? The most important question. Ask specifically what evidence they accept in place of finished-product testing.

Which approved certification body should I work with? And what do they charge — application, audit, testing, annual licence, and auditor travel.

How long, application to mark on the package?

What recognition does the mark carry with retailers and distributors in your market? A mark is worth what your buyer thinks it is worth.

What triggers re-certification? Changing malt supplier is common early on, and you want to know the cost before it happens.

Verified as of 4 August 2026 — read both organizations' public sites and confirmed the GFCO–GIG relationship and that beverages are in scope. We could not read the GFCO ppm threshold, the fee structure, or a stated position on fermented products from the public pages; those remain open questions to put to them directly.

Gluten Free Brewer has no commercial relationship with the organizations on this page and receives nothing for listing them. If that ever changes, it will be disclosed here.