Are you satisfied?

[Guest guest]

After poking around posts and topics here, in addition to going around

to various stores in S.F., I wonder how satisfied everyone is with the

selection of items and if not, what are people doing about it?

For myself, I'm fairly new to the whole GF thing, but what I'm seeing

in the stores is fairly disappointing. I've recently visited

Andronico's (Inner Sunset), Rainbow Grocery, Whole Foods (california

st & soma), Real Foods Co. (stanyan & Cole) and Tower Market (Mollie

Stones). And although some of the staff, and even a store manager

have been involved in my quest, and they've been responsive at least

in conversation, I'm finding the motivation and product selection to

be scattered and inconsistent.

My experience boils down to either the stores don't carry items

because nobody buys them or the ones they do, are so frequently sold

out they can't keep them on the shelf. Either is a bad situation.

And I don't know about anyone else, but from my perspective, various

flours, baking mixes, $6 packages of crackers, a few puffed-rice

cereals, potato chips, breakfast bars, frozen loaves of bread, cookies

and brownies just don't cut it for a balanced and healthy diet.

I can see that perhaps my newness to this whole shebang may be biasing

my experience, but from where I sit, these products should be

available locally - I should, or anyone, should not have to waste time

and energy resources (e.g. fuel, parking, etc.) driving across town to

specialty stores for the few stocked items. I think with our

collective interests we can motivate retailers to carry a broader

range of items. They all have said " we get a lot of requests " but

they're still not stocking their shelves because they don't think

people will buy them before code dates, etc.

It's a catch 22. I can see that we collectively won't shop a store

that doesn't have these products readily available, that means stocked

and easy to find, and they won't stock them unless there is enough of

a demand. I'm for gathering our resources, voices, and pocket books

to collectively push to get out locals stores to stock foods that will

allows us a healthy diet with easy to find products.

Most notably, the managers I spoke with, I'd mentioned that " we all

have online support groups and we share info...you stock it...we'll

share the info and come buy it... " and this was met with raised

eyebrows and fast feet to give me a tour of GF items in the store.

Best response I got was from Tower Market/Mollie Stones, and the

bakery person said they were considering turning their on-site bakery

into the GF regional kitchen to distribute to the other stores.

Thoughts? Ideas?

Thanks,

skooter

highly motivated celiac