Candy & chocolate · Ferrara Candy Company (Ferrero), US
Is a 100 Grand candy bar gluten-free?
The crisped rice in a 100 Grand bar is made with barley malt, a gluten grain, and it is listed on the label.
- Evidence
- CPublished label or regulation
- Last checked
- 2026-08-13
- Varies by country
- No
Source ferrara.com+3 more
Why
100 Grand looks like it should be safe. There is no wafer, no cookie layer, no biscuit, just chocolate, caramel and crunchy bits of rice. Rice is gluten-free. The trap is one word inside a parenthesis.
Read the crisped rice sub-list. The printed ingredient statement breaks the component out: Crisped Rice (Rice Flour, Sugar, Barley Malt, Salt). Some current Ferrero-era packs have dropped the parenthetical grouping and instead list rice flour up front with barley malt extract further down the list, the formatting changed, the barley did not.
Barley malt is barley. Malting is sprouting and kilning a grain to develop enzymes and flavour; nothing in the process removes the gluten protein. Barley malt, malt extract, malt syrup and malt flavouring all derive from barley and all carry gluten. Under the US gluten-free labelling rule, a food containing barley malt cannot be labelled gluten-free at all, which is why no 100 Grand pack has ever carried the claim.
This is why crisped rice is a category-wide problem. Barley malt is the standard flavouring in commercial crisped rice, the same reason Nestlé Crunch, Krackel, and most rice-crisp cereals fail the test. If you see "crisped rice" or "crisp rice" in a chocolate bar, assume malt until the sub-list proves otherwise. This single ingredient probably accounts for more accidental gluten exposure in the candy aisle than any other.
The caramel and the chocolate are not the issue. Caramel in confectionery is sugar, corn syrup and dairy, no gluten. The milk chocolate is sugar, cocoa butter, chocolate, milk solids, lactose, soy lecithin and flavour. If the crisped rice were made without malt, this bar would pass.
Ferrara does not publish a gluten-free list. Ferrara's FAQ states that "due to changes that may occur in the manufacturing and packaging environments, Ferrara does not provide allergen or gluten-free lists on this site." There is therefore no manufacturer statement to cite either way: the verdict rests on the printed label, which is unambiguous, and on celiac-organisation lists that name 100 Grand as a barley-malt candy to avoid.
A note on who makes it. 100 Grand was a Nestlé bar in the US until Ferrero bought Nestlé's US confectionery business in 2018; it is now produced by Ferrero's Ferrara Candy Company. Retailer listings are a mess of old and new labels, some still show the pre-2018 statement with high-fructose corn syrup and vanillin. Every version located, old and new, contains barley malt.
How much risk is this?
Celiac disease: avoid. Barley malt is an intentional ingredient, not a trace contaminant, and there is no version of this bar without it. The quantity is small relative to the bar, but "small" is not the standard, the tolerance commonly cited for celiac disease is on the order of 10 mg of gluten a day, and a malted-rice component clears that easily.
Non-celiac gluten sensitivity: also avoid. Whether a bar's worth of barley malt triggers symptoms varies by person, but you are eating actual barley.
Wheat allergy specifically: barley is not wheat, so 100 Grand is not automatically off-limits for an isolated wheat allergy, though the label also carries wheat cross-contact and other allergen advisories, and barley cross-reactivity is common enough that most allergists advise avoiding it. Ask yours.
Gluten-free by preference: your call, but you are not avoiding gluten if you eat this.
What to have instead
The goal is chocolate plus caramel plus crunch, without malted rice:
- PaydayPeanuts and caramel, no chocolate crisp component at all, and Hershey publishes it on its gluten-free product list.
- Snickers, Milky Way and Three Musketeers, not recommended here, and it is worth saying whyAvoidBecause they are the obvious mental substitutes. None contains a gluten grain on its US panel. But Mars declines to make a gluten-free claim on any chocolate product it manufactures, and has said the absence of an advisory statement carries no information either way. That is a weaker evidence base than the bars listed above, not a stronger one. If you are strict, take a Hershey or Enjoy Life product where the claim is published.
- Reese's Peanut Butter CupsGluten-freeHershey maintains a published gluten-free product list, which is stronger documentation than most of the aisle.
- Enjoy Life chocolate chips and morselsUnverifiedIf it is specifically the crunch you miss, certified gluten-free and free-from the major allergens. Note that Enjoy Life discontinued its chocolate bars; the baking chips and morsels remain in production, so buy those rather than looking for a bar.
- ButterfingerPeanut-butter brittle crunch rather than crisped rice, and the manufacturer states most Butterfinger products are gluten-free (not the Crisp variant).
Nestlé Crunch, Krackel, Kit Kat, Twix, and Whatchamacallit, crisped rice with barley malt, or wafer, or cookie, in every case.
Related questions
Is barley malt really gluten? Yes. Barley is one of the three gluten grains alongside wheat and rye. Malt extract, malt syrup, malt flavouring and malt vinegar all originate in barley; only malt vinegar is treated as borderline by some authorities, and the rest are straightforwardly not gluten-free.
Is Nestlé Crunch gluten-free? No, same failure mode. Crisped rice with barley malt. This is the single most common reason a chocolate bar that "looks fine" isn't.
How much gluten is in a 100 Grand bar? Nobody publishes a figure. Barley malt is a minor ingredient by weight, but the threshold for a gluten-free label is 20 ppm and there is no safe daily dose for celiac disease. Quantity is not the deciding factor here; presence is.
Are 100 Grand fun-size bars different from the full-size bar? The formulations differ slightly between pack sizes, the fun-size list includes skim milk and water and orders things differently, but both list barley malt. Mini and fun-size versions of candy genuinely do sometimes differ from the full-size product, so it is a habit worth keeping.
Was 100 Grand ever gluten-free under Nestlé? No version we have located, Nestlé-era or Ferrero-era, omits barley malt. The 2018 ownership change altered sweeteners and flavourings on some labels, not the crisped rice.
Does the "may contain wheat" advisory on the wrapper matter here? It is beside the point on this bar. An advisory warns about trace transfer from shared equipment; 100 Grand contains a declared gluten grain outright. Even a perfectly clean line would not make it gluten-free.
How we checked
| Source | Tier |
|---|---|
| Akobeng & Thomas, Aliment Pharmacol Ther 2008 (PMID 18315587): "a daily gluten intake of <10 mg is unlikely to cause significant histological abnormalities", the source of the ~10 mg/day figure cited on this page | C |
| 100 Grand printed ingredient list (CVS listing), crisped rice sub-list includes barley malt | C |
| 100 Grand fun size ingredient list (Kroger), barley malt present | C |
| Celiac Disease Foundation, Gluten-Free Candy List, 100 Grand named among candies containing barley malt | B |
Ferrara FAQs, company publishes no gluten-free or allergen list; no gluten-free claim exists for this bar, tier n/a: an absence of a manufacturer claim is not manufacturer evidence | n/a |
| US gluten-free labelling rule, a food containing barley malt cannot bear a gluten-free claim | C |
Overall source tier: C. There is no manufacturer statement, because Ferrara declines to issue them. The verdict rests on the printed ingredient label, which names a gluten grain directly, plus corroboration from a national celiac organisation's avoid list. That is more than sufficient for a "no", a declared ingredient does not need a manufacturer to confirm it.
Last verified: 10 August 2026. Manufacturers reformulate without notice. If a future pack drops barley malt from the crisped rice, this page changes. The wrapper in your hand outranks it.