Certified Gluten-Free
Certified gluten-free, from bean to bar.
Every bar we make in our Manchester kitchen is certified gluten-free by GFCO — one of the only craft bean-to-bar chocolate makers in the country who can say that.
Why gluten-free certified?
If you have Celiac disease or a gluten sensitivity, you already know the routine: read the label, check the allergen statement, look for the "made in a facility that also processes…" line, and then decide whether it's worth the risk anyway.
Plenty of chocolate says gluten-free on the package. Very little of it has been verified by anyone but the company printing the label. We wanted our customers to be able to skip the detective work entirely — to pick up a Loon bar and just eat it.
It starts with two kitchens
Certification isn't a sticker you apply at the end. It's a decision about how you build the whole operation — and for us, that meant separating our production entirely.
Manchester
Our bean-to-bar factory, and where every GFCO certified bar is made. No gluten-containing ingredient has entered this kitchen in over nine months — we cleared it out well before certification, so there was never a transition period to worry about.
Bedford
Opening our Bedford kitchen gave anything gluten-containing a home of its own. Keeping those products entirely out of Manchester is a big part of why we opened it.
Certified to twice the standard the FDA requires
Gluten is measured in parts per million. The lower the number, the safer the product for someone with Celiac disease. Here's where the thresholds sit — and where we test. Tap any row for the detail.
Under the FDA rule in effect since 2014, any food testing below 20 parts per million can be labeled "gluten-free." No audit is required, and no testing has to be submitted to anyone — a company can make the claim on its own.
To carry the GFCO mark, a product has to test below 10 parts per million — half of what the FDA allows. GFCO certifies individual products, not factories: they audit the plant, review every ingredient, and test on an ongoing basis to keep each certification in force.
We hold our own testing to under 5 parts per million — a quarter of the FDA limit. Nobody requires this of us. It's the margin we want for people who can't afford a mistake.
GFCO holds certified products to half the gluten the FDA allows. We hold ourselves to half of that again — not because anyone asked us to, but because the people eating our chocolate deserve the margin.
What's covered
Every bar and mini bar we make in Manchester. No asterisks, no exceptions, no "select varieties."
- All Full Size Bars — every flavor, every origin
- All Mini Bars — including dispensing boxes and assortment bags
- Every ingredient — each one reviewed and approved by GFCO, not just the finished bar
- Our Manchester plant — registered with GFCO and audited on site, with ongoing product testing
Any company can print "gluten-free" on a wrapper. GFCO certification means an independent organization audited our plant, reviewed every ingredient, and tests our products on an ongoing basis — and can pull the certification if we ever stop meeting the standard.
What you'll see change
The certification is already in effect. The packaging is catching up.
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NowOur bars are certified. If a bar was made in our gluten-free Manchester kitchen, it's covered — whether or not the wrapper shows the logo yet.
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In the coming weeksGFCO stickers on Mini Bar dispensing boxes and assortment bags, plus shelf inserts so the certification is visible where you're shopping.
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Over the next month or twoNew packaging with the GFCO logo on the back. This is a rolling changeover, so you'll see both versions on shelves for a while. Both are certified.
Go ahead and eat the chocolate.
That's the whole point. If you have questions about our gluten program, our testing, or a specific product, we'd genuinely like to hear from you.
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