Mars Celebrations Gluten Free?

By Laura | Published December 21, 2009

Mars products

UPDATE: Jan, 2015

The MARS website isn’t the easiest to navigate. If you click on the Nutritional Information section, you can click on your favourite products. Once you choose a product, and size, you can then search under the “Allergens” tab and it will list the allergens found in your chosen product. I’m still waiting on a full gluten-free list from MARS UK.

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UPDATE: December 2012 - The new gluten free labelling law passed back in January of this year is great because it means that products can’t be labelled as gluten free unless they are in fact gluten free. Unfortunately this new law also means that we discover the truth about some companies previous gluten free claims. MARS are one of these companies. As of January this year MARS UK can no longer class any of their products as gluten free. :( Below is the email I got from them.

Hi Laura,

Thanks for asking about the gluten free status of our products.On 1 January 2012, a new law was introduced to cover how foods can be labelled with claims about gluten. As you may know, it’s not always possible to make food gluten-free, and until recently there was no legal definition of what ‘gluten-free’ meant. The majority of our factories are not grain-free and therefore the products made in them cannot be classed as ‘gluten-free’. Whilst we recognise that consumers like to have lists of suitable products for their diet, this legislation change means that we are no longer able to provide these.

Therefore, at Mars we always encourage consumers to read the ingredients list to be clear when a product contains any allergenic ingredients as part of the recipe or in trace amounts. For a gluten intolerance or allergy, such ingredients would be cereals such as wheat, barley, rye and oats amongst others.

If you’re interested in MARS products in the USA you can read my MARS USA post!

2009: I’m sitting in my office on a chilly day. It’s almost Christmas and there are sweets and treats galore. A huge box of Mars Celebrations is beaming at me from across the room and I’m wondering whether or not I can have any of these. I know I can’t have Malteasers but what about the others? I emailed Mars to ask them for a list of their gluten free products. Let’s see if they get back to me with good news!

Message:
Hello, I was wondering if you could send me a list telling me which of your products are gluten free? You don’t have this information on your labelling and you don’t provide details of your gf products in the coeliac UK list so how can I find out which of your products are safe for me to eat? I have recently found out that I have coeliac disease and was very dissapointed to discover that I had to stay away from all Mars products because I can’t be certain about the gluten content. Please help me out here because I’m missing out on some of my favourite treats…Thanks, Laura

My reply from Mars:

Dear Laura

Thank you for contacting us regarding the Gluten Free status of our chocolate products.

Please find below a current list of Mars products that are suitable for a gluten free diet.

Bounty – Milk & Dark
Galaxy – Minstrels
Galaxy – Ripple
Galaxy - Smooth Milk Chocolate
Galaxy – Smooth Dark Chocolate
Galaxy Pieces – Milk Chocolate & Caramel
M&M’s - Choco & Peanut
Milky Way - Magic Stars
Treets – Peanut Treets

Ice Cream

Bounty Chocolate Ice Cream stick
Bounty Ice Cream bar
Galaxy Caramel Swirls Ice Cream stick
Galaxy Vanilla Heaven Ice Cream bar
Snickers Ice Cream bar

Mars exercises every care in providing this product information, please be aware that changes may occur in the future.

I bet you were happy to discover that galaxy chocolate is gluten free. I know I was. 🙂

 

 

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Comments

  • Lemon

    Jan 6th, 2012

    Hi Laura, thanks very much for posting this message, it was really useful. I too have recently been diagnosed with CD, and being a lover of chocolate, this was the first thing i checked to see if it contained gluten!! Im glad to hear that most Mars products are safe for us to eat!

  • Laura

    Jan 9th, 2012

    I’m happy I could help. Welcome to our gluten free world. I’m so happy that a lot of chocolate and sweets I ate before turned out to gluten free. 🙂

  • Faisal

    Feb 28th, 2012

    Laura

    Thanks a lot to share this. My son was diagnosed Celiac decease and it was very hard to find GF products in Middle East (we are living in Qatar). This is great news that we can buy GALAXY products.

  • john

    Jul 21st, 2012

    had a bounty last night.felt like crap tis morn.so looked on web to find out if it was bounty that caused it.thanks to you i found it wasnt……………diagnosed oct.approaching 50th birthday……..was a good athelete before although tired most of time…….now struggling with all aspects from diet to training…..fed up eating same stuff week in wek out!!!

  • Nina

    Sep 26th, 2012

    Hi all,
    Just had a look on the galaxy UK website, which has some updates… not all of galaxy chocolates in the UK are gluten free anymore. Unfortunately manufacturers change their recipies all the time without any warning…
    http://www.galaxychocolate.co.uk/nutrition/#tab-container11

  • Shrimpo

    Nov 15th, 2012

    Galaxy smooth chocolate is NOT gluten free 🙁 Galaxy minstrels are gluten free thou!!

    I had a major choc urge today so I bought Minstrels as I know they are safe and also a bar of the smooth galaxy thinking this was safe also, after getting home and checking the ingredients on the smooth it clearly stated gluten 🙁

    This must have changed since the original post I know but thought I’d let everyone know!!

  • Laura

    Dec 4th, 2012

    Thanks for your updates on Galaxy folks! I’ve since re- contacted MARS UK and I’ve added their unfortunately devastating reply to this post.

  • Lee

    Dec 5th, 2012

    Well, I hardly ever eat chocolate, but felt the urge yesterday, and purchased a Galaxy Smooth Milk (as the Coeliac UK directory lists it as safe).

    I could barely think straight today, and didn’t even consider it could have been the choc.

    Urgh, nothing’s easy!

  • Ruby Fuller

    Jan 20th, 2013

    I have just been diagnosed with CD, it’s so good to know that i can have a snicker ice cream bar and still drink coca cola. I’m wondering about Buster bars at Dairy Queen? I love them. You know what is the strangest thing i miss BREAD I read there is gluten-free bread. Do you know what brand is the best. Thank you so much for all your info.
    Cheers,
    Ruby

  • Debs

    Feb 6th, 2013

    Hi ruby I personally think ” yes ” bread is the best tasting bread or there is a website for great bread rolls and cakes and pastries …. wheatfreebakery.co.uk … Hope this helps
    Debs

  • Dave Roberts

    May 20th, 2013

    Just made this mistake myself. Trying to work out what’s good and what’s not, and I’d eaten a bar of 75g Galaxy daily for three days before figuring out that was to blame by googling it and coming here! I’d checked the labelling carefully, but that was not enough in this case.

    There’s a bit more info on the Mars site now which states that the Galaxy Smooth milk Chocolate contains Gluten, or ‘may contain’ depending on the size! 75g is a ‘may’, which is enough for me.
    http://www.marsnutrition.co.uk/NutritionDetailsNew.aspx?pc=26660

  • chocomomster

    May 5th, 2014

    diagnosed with wheat intolerance last year despite my g.p. insisting that i had “ibs ” and was ” too old to have a food allergy ” and refused me any form of test, basically cut out wheat on the suggestion of a friend and “wow” within 7 days almost totally symptom free-cannot explain my joy at no longer having to go through that hell anymore.
    overjoyed that i can still eat chocolate stars in moderation-i always loved chocolate and it’s great that i don’t have to go without. thanks to everyone who put effort into compiling the list.