Setting a Place for Gluten-Free Cheerios

A classic cereal makes the move to go gluten-free. Here’s the scoop from food editor Beth Hillson.

[Updated July 10, 2015]

This summer, General Mills starts rolling out gluten-free Cheerios. From then on, the company will make only a gluten-free version, and only the top five sellers—including the iconic (original) yellow box Cheerios, Honey Nut Cheerios, Frosted Cheerios, Apple Cinnamon Cheerios, and Multigrain Cheerios—will be gluten-free. Nine others from the gluten-free community and I attended the General Mills Cheerios Summit in Minneapolis earlier this week to understand the process and motivation behind General Mills’ launch of gluten-free Cheerios. Here is some of what we learned.

How does a mainstream product that has been off limits to gluten free folks for so many years suddenly become gluten free? 

Oats are inherently gluten-free but the cross-contamination with wheat and barley has made most oats off limits. General Mills spent five years perfecting a mechanical process for sorting and removing the wheat and barley from the oat groats to insure the oats meet the FDA safety standard for gluten free.

Why not use certified gluten-free oats?

Production folks at General Mills say there is not enough certified gluten free oats in the world to meet their production needs (about 400 million pounds of oat flour per year). 

What level will they test at and how often? 

As Raquel from quality control explained, Cheerios will meet and exceed the FDA labeling standard of less than 20 ppm. Elisa testing will be done on the finished product, but the focus is on separating out the gluten-containing grains at the earlier stage of manufacturing and, for that, General Mills has built the new multimillion-dollar Fridley Mill we toured in Minneapolis. Although the equipment is “off-the-shelf,” the way it is assembled and the number of repetitions needed to properly clean the oats is a proprietary process.

The new mill is dedicated to handling the separation and processing of these oats and removes contaminated dust as well as the hull of the oats through a process using high pressure air. Once the oats are toasted and ground into flour, they are shipped in dedicated rail cars to plants where the Cheerios are made on enclosed systems in walled-off areas of the plants. The process is carefully monitored from start to finish.

What about the wheat starch?

Wheat starch will not be used. In fact it isn’t used now, except on occasion in one mill. By putting wheat starch on the label, General Mills was able to say “Contains Wheat,” a caution to people with celiac disease that the original cereal was not safe for their consumption. “We spent all this money to literally not change anything,” says one production manager. The original Cheerios is also GMO-free. The taste and the price of Cheerios will not change.

How will I know when the gluten-free versions are available? 

There will be a transition period in which both types of Cheerios will be on the shelves.  After July, you will begin to see boxes that carry the “simply gluten free” seal at the lower right of the front of the box. After a few months and depending on the supply in the pipeline, the old box without the seal will disappear and the new ones will take their place.

Why is General Mills doing this? 

It’s good business. General Mills has 800 gluten-free products already. Since Chex went gluten-free in 2008, the company sees double-digit growth in sales year after year.  They’ve invested a lot of money in changing over Cheerios and hope to see the same growth in that line.   

But it’s a personal story, too. Phil, who has worked at General Mills for 50 years and is the brains behind Honey Nut Cheerios, was inspired to create gluten-free Cheerios after his daughter-in-law was diagnosed with severe gluten intolerance.  At first, it was a “hobby” project. Once he and other engineers were able to prove that the oats could be separated successfully, the company put all its efforts behind the project. There’s a lot at stake for General Mills.   

Nevertheless, a small percentage of folks with celiac disease cannot tolerate oats in any form. Check with your doctor before eating Cheerios or any other form of oats.