Never Living Without

Posts Tagged ‘shopping’

Thank you for returning to Never Living Without. I hope my information has given you some inspiration to go out and try some new Gluten Free cooking experiments. That is how some of my best recipes were developed!

My sister and her two year old daughter have just been diagnosed with Celiac’s Disease. I have been pushing my entire family to get tested because they all have stomach problems. My sister was told she could not be tested while she was pregnant so when one of her daughters started to show signs they both went in. She does have three other children that will also need to be tested.

She is starting to feel the overwhelming  stress that many of us feel when we were first diagnosed.

I want this transition to be as easy as possible. While researching local stores for her we remembered that when I visited two years ago we went shopping at a Harris Teeter store. Just out of curiosity I went to their website. To my delight, I found they have a system where you can enter your desired items online into a list and pick them up at your local store. I searched through their groceries and found many GF items. This was a long process but once you have the list made it couldn’t be easier. I created a username and password for her and now she has access to an entire list of GF products at a store she can go to at her convenience. I don’t have a Harris Teeter anywhere near me but this is a great resource for her living in North Carolina.

I love my local organic food store. It took many many years for us to get anything like it in our rural area. I have to say the owner of Millie Hill Market has had her hands full with me. She is constantly ordering new GF items for us to try. To her delight most of them end up selling right off of her shelves. This is the type of relationship you want to have with your local store. If they are supportive it can make your life a ton easier.

Find out who is in charge of organic foods at your local grocery store.

They are always looking for feedback on what to carry. They want to know what will sell and if you can give them some items they might be more willing to carry similar items.  If they seem hesitant just keep on building that relationship with them. Have other friends or family come in and request the same items. Usually if they get enough requests they will try out the product and watch the sales of these items.

I had been trying to get our local store to carry the Tinkyada noodles because they were my favorite. My uncle is a manager at this store and I had him ask his supervisor. After about a year of asking I lucked out one day. I was shopping and the store had managers from another store visiting and setting up displays. I asked them if I could talk with them for a minute and they were willing to listen.

I explained that the GF noodles they carried were not selling because they turn to mush when cooked. I also told them I had a much better quality noodle that would sell a ton faster. Let’s just say in a few short weeks my store had 4 different shapes of Tinkyada noodles and they have been selling like crazy. Now all I usually have to do is ask my uncle if they can carry an item. If they are able to order it they usually will. They had the Betty Crocker GF mixes almost imediately after I asked. This whole process makes grocery shopping a lot easier on us and our budgets.