Guide
Allergens in digestive biscuits
Digestive biscuits contain wheat. Many also contain barley malt extract, and some contain soya. A cheesecake base or traybake crust made from them carries those allergens into the dessert, including a gluten-free filling poured on top.
Reviewed against official guidance.SourcesNot legal advice.
The usual pattern
The biscuit is wheat flour, vegetable oil, sugar and often barley malt. Chocolate digestives add milk and usually soya lecithin. Crushing them does not change the ingredients.
What to check in digestive biscuits
| What you see | What it means on a PPDS label |
|---|---|
| Wheat flour | Cereals containing gluten |
| Barley malt extract | Barley |
| Chocolate coating | Milk, often soya |
| Gluten-free biscuit used instead | A different product — check egg, soya and lupin |
How to write it on the label
PPDS food needs the name of the food and a full ingredients list, with the 14 allergens emphasised every time they appear. The Food Standards Agency’s PPDS guidance is the practical reference. A typical ingredients fragment looks like this — yours must follow the specification of the product you actually use.
Example fragment
Wheat flour, vegetable oil, sugar, barley malt extract.
Where it shows up
Cheesecake bases, millionaire’s shortbread, banoffee pie and dessert pots.
A gluten-free cheesecake on a digestive base
The filling can be free of gluten and the base still wheat and barley. The slice you pack is not gluten-free.
Branded biscuits change. Keep the current ingredients panel with the recipe.
Specification first
Brands differ. Treat this page as the usual pattern, then match the label to the tub, bag or recipe in front of you.
Questions
Are digestive biscuits gluten-free?
Do I list the biscuit or its ingredients?
Official sources
Everything on this page traces back to these. Where they and we disagree, they are right — tell us and we'll fix it.
- Introduction to allergen labelling for PPDS foodFood Standards Agency / GOV.UK
- Labelling guidance for prepacked for direct sale (PPDS) food productsFood Standards Agency / GOV.UK
- Food allergen labelling and information requirements technical guidanceFood Standards Agency / GOV.UK