Guide
Allergens in soy sauce
Soy sauce contains soya. Most brewed soy sauces also contain wheat, which is a cereal containing gluten. Tamari is often made without wheat, but it is still soya — check that bottle, do not guess from the name.
Reviewed against official guidance.SourcesNot legal advice.
The usual pattern
Naturally brewed soy sauce is soya beans, wheat, salt and water. Gluten-free tamari drops the wheat. Some cheap sauces are hydrolysed soya protein with caramel and still contain soya, sometimes with wheat.
What to check in soy sauce
| What you see | What it means on a PPDS label |
|---|---|
| Soya beans | Soya |
| Wheat in standard soy sauce | Cereals containing gluten — name wheat |
| Tamari labelled gluten-free | Soya remains; wheat does not, if the spec says so |
| Teriyaki and marinades | Often soy sauce plus extra wheat or sesame |
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
Water, soya beans, wheat, salt.
Where it shows up
Stir-fries, marinades, sushi rice seasoning, noodle pots and some gravies.
Calling everything tamari
If the recipe card says tamari but the kitchen pours ordinary soy sauce, the label is missing wheat.
Coconut aminos are not soy sauce. They are a different ingredient with their own spec.
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
Is all soy sauce gluten-free?
Do I write soya or soybeans?
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