Is Heinz Ketchup gluten-free? Yes, it is! But it’s not labeled as such on every bottle, so you may need to be careful if you’re extremely sensitive to gluten. Read on for more.
A note on location
First of all, this information is true for the US. Heinz is sold in so many countries around the world. I can’t find any country where Heinz ketchup does contain gluten, but that doesn’t mean that Heinz doesn’t use gluten in any of their products in any single country.
I gathered information directly from the Heinz website at the time of writing in January 2022. But things can always change so it’s extremely important to check your labels.
You really should check every single time you buy something processed like ketchup because companies can change their recipes at any time!
I read some old forum entries saying that their organic ketchup is not gluten-free in the US, but is in the UK and Canada. That was 10 years ago.
These days, it is gluten-free in the US and even labeled as such!
What about Canada?
I read that in Canada, the bottle isn’t labeled as gluten-free because Heinz can’t guarantee the origin of the spices, due to changing suppliers. It seems as though in Canada, Kraft has a policy that they won’t label something as gluten-free unless they’re 100% sure, at all times, of everything being gluten-free.
So you’ll likely want to find a different brand of ketchup where gluten-free is specifically written on the bottle. That way you can be assured that it’s indeed gluten-free.
Ingredients
Here are the ingredients for their three most popular varieties.
Classic Heinz
The original ketchup contains: tomato concentrate from red ripe tomatoes, distilled vinegar, high-fructose corn syrup, corn syrup, salt, spice, onion powder, and natural flavoring.
Simply Heinz
This one uses sugar instead of high-fructose corn syrup.
Simply Heinz is made from: red ripe tomatoes, vinegar, sugar, salt, and a special blend of spices and flavorings.
Organic Heinz
So this is like Simply Heinz, but using organic ingredients.
The ingredients are: organic tomato concentrate from red ripe organic tomatoes, organic distilled vinegar, organic sugar, salt, organic onion powder, organic spice natural flavoring.
Vinegar?
Vinegar can be a tricky ingredient as some people can be sensitive to vinegar made from gluten grains. However, Heinz uses distilled vinegar made from corn and not wheat.
Which bottles say gluten-free on them
These bottles say gluten-free on them
- Heinz Tomato Ketchup
- Heinz Organic Tomato Ketchup
- Heinz Simply Tomato Ketchup No Artificial Sweeteners
- Heinz Tomato Ketchup Sweetened Only with Honey
- Heinz Jalapeno Tomato Ketchup Blended with Real Jalapeno
- Heinz Sriracha Tomato Ketchup Blended with Sriracha
These bottles do NOT say gluten-free on them
- Heinz Tomato Ketchup No Sugar Added
- Heinz Tomato Ketchup No Salt Added
- Heinz Hot & Spicy Tomato Ketchup Blended with Tabasco Pepper Sauce
However, none of them contain gluten-containing ingredients. On a few of them, in comparison to the other bottles that do say gluten-free, they had so much extra text about the sugar and salt that I thought that perhaps they just didn’t have space.
One other possibility is that they didn’t have them tested yet. If you’re very sensitive to gluten, you could always get in contact with Heinz and ask.
There’s another possible reason that could explain why they’re not labeled as gluten-free – and that’s cross-contamination. Perhaps the three types not labeled as gluten-free are manufactured in a different facility?
Cross-contamination
For products (including those aforementioned Heinz ketchup products that are labeled gluten-free) to legally be labeled as gluten-free in the US, they must first meet the requirements of the FDA of being less than 20ppm gluten.
Sometimes, products don’t have gluten ingredients in them but can’t be labeled as gluten-free due to a possibility of cross-contamination, among other reasons.
Equipment may or may not be cleaned when they switch from product to product. This could lead to cross-contamination.
Some manufacturers are very careful when switching from a gluten to a non-gluten product, but some, unfortunately, aren’t.
Food processing equipment is notoriously difficult to properly clean unless the manufacturer dismantles everything. I think we can ssume that very few companies do that.
So if you’re highly sensitive to gluten, you’ll definitely want to check labels carefully before buying anything processed.
In the US and many other countries, common allergens used in food must be labeled on product packaging. So if an ingredient with gluten is being used, it should say so on the label.
The label might also say something such as: “processed in a shared facility” – “may contain (traces of) gluten” – “made on shared equipment with gluten-containing foods.”
I hope I’ve answered your question on whether or not Heinz Ketchup is gluten-free. :) If you have any others, leave a comment below and I’ll be happy to help answer them.
Also be sure to check out my other gluten-free recipes. I have over 400 and they’re all formulated to taste just as delicious as their traditional counterparts! So let’s get out the Heinz and bring on the potato wedges. :)
>I also have another site where you can find recipes that’d be great with ketchup, like these Air Fryer Garlic Fries and Air Fryer Turkey Burgers!
