Ube allergen and dietary statement

Ube is the tuber of Dioscorea alata, a climbing vine. It is not a nut, not a legume and not a seed. It belongs to the yam family, which is botanically unrelated to tree nuts and peanuts. Ube is sometimes described as tasting nutty, and that flavour note is the reason the question gets asked, but it has no bearing on allergen status.

The tuber contains no nuts. Our Heritage Reserve powder is ube alone. Our Ani grade is ube plus a plant-derived food-grade maltodextrin carrier used in spray-drying, which we disclose in full on the spec sheet. Neither contains nut material. Finished products made with ube elsewhere may of course contain nuts from other ingredients.

Ube is a tuber, not a cereal grain, so it contains no gluten. That is a compositional fact about the crop. Whether a specific finished product may be labelled gluten free in your market depends on your own facility, testing and certification, not on the raw material alone.

Philippine Ube is Halal certified. Ube itself is a plant product with no animal-derived input, and the maltodextrin carrier in our Ani grade is plant-derived.

The tuber and our powders are plant products with no animal-derived ingredients. Ube halaya is the common exception: the traditional recipe is cooked with condensed or evaporated milk and butter, so most ube halaya is not vegan. Ube ice cream and ube lattes are usually dairy-based for the same reason. The colour is not the dairy, the recipe is.

Ube contains no caffeine. An ube latte or ube tea bought in a cafe may well contain caffeine, but it comes from the espresso or tea base the drink is built on, not from the ube. An ube drink made on milk alone has none.

Ube is a plant product and compatible with kosher dietary guidelines, but we do not hold formal kosher certification today. It can be arranged for specific production batches on request.

We are not certified organic. Many of our partner farms work without synthetic pesticides or chemical fertilisers, but we do not hold formal organic certification and we do not describe the product as organic. Certification is on the roadmap as we scale.