Bulk bin safety: Natural Food store on Castro & Rainbow

[Guest guest]

One source of contamination (and the main reason I never buy

from the bulk bins) is that I have seen workers at my local market dusting the

inside and outside of each bin, one after the other, with the same feather

duster. That was when I realized that, no matter how far away the GF

flours were from contaminants, I could never be sure about the safety of bulk

bin flours. Now I only buy items from the bulk bins if they can be washed

(such as beans). Even if I got the store to put non-contamination procedures

in place, the turnover of employees and opportunities for contamination from

bag to bins were always going to be impossible to control. Maybe in a

smaller store this would be an easier task.

If you are going to ask them to move the bins, they should be

high up and preferably distinctly separated to avoid any child-vectored or

spilled contamination issues. I would also recommend tethered scoops that

cannot be transferred between bins.

Pam

From:

[mailto: ] On

Behalf Of Aidan Dunn

Sent: Thursday, February 21, 2008 9:48 AM

Subject: [ ] Re: Natural Food store on Castro & Rainbow

Caitlin,

I don't usually get sick from cross-contamination, but

I've been buying Rainbow's bulk brown rice flour for

years with no problems. Now that you mention it,

though (and someone else mentioned that people switch

scoops), it's probably not the best idea.

However, i have found that Rainbow is definitely open

to customer suggestions. Since they're a worker-owned

co-op and not a big corporation, they have more

flexibility to make changes and accommodate customers'

needs. I will ask them about GF flours and

contamination the next time I'm in there. If others do

the same, perhaps we can get them to move the flour to

a " safer " place. Does anyone have any suggestions for

how far it would need to be from the other flours,

etc, to avoid contamination?

In other news, I went to Golden Natural Foods

yesterday and asked about the 2 GF things I want them

to carry: Annie's brown rice macaroni & cheese, and

Kinnikinnick bagels. They said they will definitely

start stocking the Annie's as of next week, and

they'll look into whether their distributor can get

them Kinnikinnick products. I'm really psyched to be

able to get so many GF products in my neighborhood,

finally...city life is spoiling me!

Aidan

__________________________________

1b.

Re: Natural Food store on

Castro & Rainbow Posted by:

" caitlinganter " caitlinganter@...

caitlinganter

Wed Feb 20, 2008 8:47 am

(PST) I went to Rainbow on Monday

for the first time since being back in SF

and GF. I was looking for flours, and of course, they

are all in bulk

which is fine, excpet that the barley flour is next to

the brown rice

flour, etc, and frankly the " rather safe than sorry "

voice chimed in

my head. Does anyone purchase bulk flours at Rainbow?

The threat of

cross contamination was just too much for me. I was

thinking of

writing a letter suggesting should move their bins

around since they

even have a section on their website about Celiac and

this is a big

issue. Anyway, if any of you do purchase their bulk

flours and do not

have problems I'd be interested to know that it is

actually more safe

than it looks. The rest of their stuff was great

though!

Cheers!

Caitlin