One thing we hear when going out in the gluten community is “are you new?” and “why haven’t I heard of you before?”
We’ve been behind the scenes working with food manufacturers and industry partners, providing accredited testing services and industry-level test kits guiding food safety for a generation without expensive marketing campaigns, foreign investors, or cutting corners. Our EZ Gluten test established certifications for gluten-free tests when we received the first PTM approval from the AOAC International Research Institute for a rapid gluten test nearly 15 years ago. Food manufacturers test the foods you eat so they can provide safety and reassurance to you as a consumer. Our tests are the original gluten tests used (and still used) to establish gluten-free certifications by those food producers.
We got our start making the only test kits approved by the USDA for meat speciation in the early 90s. We still manufacture those kits today. In the late 2000s, we saw a need from family members for reliably gluten-free foods. There was no FDA standard for “gluten-free” foods at the time, so we forged ahead with a test that worked down to 10 ppm gluten. This was a level we could comfortably test to with results we could trust. Alongside that, we made a quantitative assay that was sensitive to 5 ppm (based on guidance of AOAC’s Official Method of Analysis 991.19) which we have since improved to a limit of 2.5 ppm. These tests are valuable tools for on-site and laboratory testing for gluten in foods, beverages, and on surfaces.
While we were providing our kits and services to industry, we became aware of the need for home users to test foods themselves. We saw the food anxiety and concerns when consumers went out to eat, gathered with friends, or found a naturally gluten-free food with no gluten-free label letting them know about their risk. Although there is an increased risk of sampling errors with testing outside a laboratory, we listened to this need and opened up our kit to home users nearly a decade ago. As an established company, we didn’t have venture capital or investors’ start-up money to throw at advertising, so we continued on with our business model as a small, family-owned business focused on quality, service, and reliability. This meant word of mouth, in-person interactions at shows and events, and more recently, social media. We’ve never used an answering service or phone tree, and, when you call during business hours, you’ll always speak to someone in-house who has personally handled the product. Even highly technical questions are typically answered during the phone call, sometimes with the aid of one of our scientists. If your question requires a more in-depth follow-up, we can even provide a written response. We stand behind our products and take responsibility for working through any questions or problems you may have, whether they’re about how the kit works or results that conflict with a label or another test.
When it comes to expertise, we have multiple PhD scientists on staff, industry experts on lateral flow technology, and science writers. The average tenure of our staff is roughly 10 years, demonstrating our commitment to provide for our employees with living wages and benefits to match. As a private company, we are not beholden to investors and can focus on making high quality products. We won’t harvest your data or release a product before it’s been fully validated. Our staff, our customers, and our quality standards are what define us.
For more information about our commitment to the community, visit our Community Page.
For more information about our quality standards, certifications, and accreditations, refer to our post on Certifications.