It’s the time of year when my travel schedule gets incredibly crazy as I go to both business trade shows and consumer trade shows for gluten free and allergy friendly foods. It means that my blog posts have rather erratic timing but I certainly find much in my travels to blog about.

I spent last week in Portland and Seattle, first attending a college and university foodservice trade show followed by meetings up the coast of the Pacific Northwest. It’s such an amazing difference from even 5 years ago when I had to convince many why they needed “free from” food in their stores and foodservice environments. Now, so many people are up on the needs and I’ll write another post about the amazing service one university in California gives their allergic students.

One disturbing development though was when I went on store visits. That’s when I pop into various stores in the area, some that carry our products, some that do not, so that I can see what they’re doing in their stores for the “free from” market. If I find something new and wonderful, I’ll purchase it to bring to my family to enjoy.

On 3 separate store visits, I found 3 different products that had labeling that to me, as a consumer of allergy friendly food, was unacceptable. I’ve often found inappropriate labeling on small, local companies’ products which I can understand. While it’s still not okay, tiny companies often don’t have the experience on labeling nor the budget to hire a labeling consultant. But this time I also found major companies that had really misleading labels.

I won’t mention the exact companies as these concerns are about me as a purchaser of free from food, not as the manufacturer of a potentially competing company. Here’s what I’m talking about:

Major National Gluten Free Company:
Front of package: Nut Free
Back of package disclaimer: Made in a facility that also processes tree nuts

Small Local Company:
Front of package: No Wheat, No Soy, No Dairy
Back of package disclaimer: Produced in a facility that may process wheat, dairy, eggs, nuts, shellfish, and/or soy

See anything that concerns you here? From my perspective, if a manufacturer is going to make a front of package “free from” claim, they are being misleading if they also feel that they must put on a disclaimer. It’s either one or the other, not both, in my opinion.

I did talk to the buyers at the stores of the above products (2 different stores). One store buyer agreed that it was a concern but that they were having great difficulty sourcing products that were completely free of many allergens.

The store buyer at a different store figured the “nut free” on the major brand gluten free muffins was just fine because there were no nuts in the muffins. Obviously, cross contamination concerns were not on her radar and she didn’t show much interest in my concern as the parent of a child with life threatening nut allergies.

What do you think about this kind of labeling? Am I being overly picky?

Did you know that agricultural cross contamination is a common issue in North America? In fact, it is considered so commonplace that the US Food and Drug Administration doesn’t require agricultural products to list contamination with other crops, even if they are a top food allergen.

Case in point: we are bringing out raw, shelled, unsalted sunflower seeds tomorrow as part of our new Fab 5 Products. Sunflower seeds can be cross contaminated with soybeans, corn and wheat. While millers/producers of these agricultural products have cross contamination procedures in place to identify and eliminate unexpected seeds/grains, the reality is that crops are taken off the field with the same machinery and trucks and are often stored in bins that previously contained another crop.

This is the same reason why pure, uncontaminated oats are controlled from the field to machinery to storage to milling. Otherwise, cross contamination is a real potential along the way.

Our new sunflower seeds do have a “may contain: soy” warning on them but this is also because we package them on the same line as our chocolate chip/chocolate chunk pouches (soy lecithin) and Energy Explosion trail mix (soybeans). We test ALL ingredients that come into our facility for wheat and gluten before they’re released to the production floor so you know that our sunflower seeds have been checked for that allergen.

For corn, we do not test nor do we have an allergen warning as corn is not a top food allergen. However, we will be adding a note into our corn declaration on our allergen declaration page regarding the sunflower seeds.

We provide this information to you, not because our sunflower seeds are more cross-contaminated than others, simply that we let you know about this potential cross contamination in the interests of keeping you informed about your food choices. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact our team.

The Allergic and Celiac communities in Canada have been in an uproar since November regarding our new food allergen and gluten source labeling laws that have been languishing for years. The laws began their journey in the 1990’s and by 2008, after pressure from allergy/Celiac groups, our government promised that we’d have definitive labelling laws in due course. In November, we began lobbying the Canadian government yet again as we were told that the laws were in jeopardy if they weren’t passed by December 31, 2010.

That date has come and gone yet our government says that the laws will be finalized shortly. We’ve been writing letters, signing petitions, contacting our MLA’s, meeting with the Health Minister and more to just get this done so we Canadians can have a law just like our American neighbors. Health Canada held countless roundtables and there were input periods for all manufacturers with the last one for comment on pure oats ending July 11, 2010.

Now, beer companies are lobbying to stop these upcoming laws on the premise that they will cause undue hardship to beer companies and that Celiacs all “know” that beer has gluten in it so why would beer and spirits need to be labelled?

I don’t know what’s in beer because I don’t drink it. Yet, somehow all allergic/Celiac individuals are supposed to innately know what’s in their spirits? And as one person suggested, what if I can’t drink something but my hostess doesn’t know that as she makes her special recipe with beer, liqueur, etc?

With years to weigh in with Health Canada during the consultation process and an 18 month phase in of any new labelling laws, the beer industry needs to give their head a shake and figure out that keeping people safe and healthy is really what’s in their best interest.

Want to know more? Here’s link on the story at CTV news: http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/Health/20110125/food-allergens-beer-110125/

Barry Callebaut USA has recalled Kroger Value brand semi-sweet chocolate chips after chips with dairy in them were mistakenly packed in the non-dairy/Kosher pareve packaging for Kroger. The recall notice may be seen at: http://usfoodsafety.com/02af0007.asp and the kosher alert for dairy can be seen at: http://www.ok.org/alerts.asp

I’m bringing this recall to your attention since you may be aware that Barry Callebaut is the manufacturer who produces our semi-sweet mini chocolate chips and 70% dark chocolate chunks in a peanut/nut free plant and on a dairy free line. Our chocolate is manufactured in the Quebec, Canada, plant however, not in the US and is not affected by this recall.

Further, we test every incoming ingredient for several allergens prior to releasing it into the manufacturing process, with dairy being one of the many tests we perform. If we were to discover dairy in any ingredient, it would be isolated in our warehouse and not be allowed into our production area. We would then work with the manufacturer to discover the source of the contamination problem before ordering any more ingredients from them.

If you have any questions, please let our team know at info@nonuttin.com or toll free: 1-866-714-5411.

Last year I wrote a grinchy post.  Yes, me, usually overly optimistic, glass is full kinda gal.  But I couldn’t help it.  It was the first time in a  long time that I had hosted my whole family for Christmas for a week plus I had an exchange student from France who couldn’t eat dairy.  Add that in to our 6 food allergies, it was liking going back to when the girls were little and we had to avoid dairy too.  Plus I’m a perfectionist so the house cleaning, baking, decorating, etc. had to be just so before everybody arrived.  My husband and children wisely kept quiet.

Skip forward a whole year and I’m in a less grinchy frame of mind.  I’m still trying to get 5 new products finalized this week (for launch in February), am President of my Rotary with 4 meetings this week alone (don’t ask) and hosted our employee Christmas party on Sunday (you should have seen Sandy and Sheila fight over that bottle of wine).  But we’re going to my parents’ house for Christmas, yippee! 

There are so many things to be said for someone else hosting Christmas, kind of like having your child’s birthday party at the local bowling alley.  You have to decorate very little, can leave the house dusty, put up fewer lights outside, struggle with the holly bush less often,  bake less and when it’s all over YOU get to LEAVE!  Ah, ha, ha (cue the evil laughter). 

And since my parents are so good with my family’s allergies, I know that we will only have to check things once.  My mom has it down pat and makes sure that all of the ingredients she buys she keeps the labels for so that I can have a quick go over.  Now all I have to do is bake some buns and muffins and we’re good to go. 

So my stockings are hung, my Christmas tree is glowing brightly and I have a twinkle in my eye.  Of course, I still have to do a bunch of shopping but that’s a blog post for another day.  I wish that you too can have an unGrinchy Christmas season.

Many changes have taken place at Nonuttin’ Foods and those include changes to our best selling vanilla caramel and vanilla cinnamon granolas.  While it’s important that you check ingredients every time you order to be sure you choices are good for you, here are some highlights:

Pouches of granola are no longer called granola clusters, you’ll note that they are called “granola” instead.  Why?  In hot conditions (either in transit or in the store environment), our granola clusters had a tendency to lump into a large granola clump at the bottom of the bag.  Nonuttin’ “granola clumps” was not exactly what we were going for so we wanted to ensure that all customers were getting a more consistent product, no matter what the conditions.  Therefore, the pouches of granola “clusters” are now a different consistency with a more blended granola of very small clusters, whole grain oats and crunchy rice.  These granolas are now more suitable for sprinkling on yogurt/soygurt, berries, apple crisp and more plus being great with steamed or cold milk added on top.

Those who love the clusters can still get their fix in our 30 g snack pack of vanilla caramel granola clusters.

The Nonuttin’ pouches of granola are now sesame free both in Canada and the US.   Please note that the 30 g snack pack of granolas still has sesame as a potential cross-contaminant from the facility where that particular crisp rice ingredient is made.  Please see our allergen declarations for more details.

Could your school, camp, or local grocery use Nonuttin’ granolas?  We sell Nonuttin’ vanilla caramel and vanilla cinnamon granola as bulk (4.5 kg/9.9 lb) ingredients for applications such as breakfast cereal, yogurt parfaits or snack packs.  One school even orders our granolas to turn into their own in-house granola bars. 

We do only sell these to approved foodservice institutions and businesses (sorry to those of you with teenagers eating you out of house and home) but those businesess or institutions who are interested can contact our team at wholesale@nonuttin.com.

It’s been a while since I’ve written a blog post.  With renovating here at Nonuttin’, having guests and holiday travel, I have to admit that I haven’t been very prolific with the writing.  But with all of the traveling I’ve been doing with family, I have several blog posts to write about our experiences.  That said, I’ll start with The Applebee’s Saga.

 At home we have certain restaurants we feel comfortable with and don’t tend to deviate from those if and when we go out to eat as a family.  Since we have 6 food allergies in our family, it makes for a challenge which is why we’ve gotten to know the chefs and owners of local favorites very well.

That’s all well and good but has no relevance if you’re traveling, particularly in a different country such as the US.  Since we tend to dine where the owner is present, chains don’t often meet our needs.  And even if we’re comfortable with a chain in Canada, we’ve discovered that as soon as we hit the US, there’s a whole new set of rules in that same franchise.  Case in point, Applebee’s, which we went to while in Minot, North Dakota in July. Read more »

When I’m at the grocery store I’ll pick up many different products for a variety of different reasons.

As the grocery shopper for a family with 6 different food allergies, I’m always reading the labels on products that I want to buy.  I check out new products to see if they’re suitable and I review old favorites to be sure that nothing has changed since the last time I purchased them.

But as the owner of a food company, I’m also perusing the food aisles for a whole different set of reasons.  I notice packages that I love the coloring or the artwork, perhaps the size or convenience of something makes me stop to take note or maybe a competitor has changed how they’re packaging their product.

Imagine my surprise when I picked up a new product at the grocery store last week simply because I liked its packaging and got quite a shock when I read the allergen information.  Right off the bat, I’ll tell you it was a natural snack with nuts in it which I already knew was off limits for my family but I read the allergen information anyway and that’s when I saw it:  “Contains nuts.  May contain other allergens not listed.“  Huh? Read more »

Do you ever wonder why you never see the words allergy free on our products or website?

I began using the term allergy friendly about 6 years ago and ever since then have been correcting those who refer to Nonuttin’ products as allergy free.  While I can understand that like “gluten free”, it’s a quick and easy way to refer to products that are designed for those with food allergies, it doesn’t communicate the true reality of food allergies. Read more »

Health Canada has said since 2007 that pure oats (no wheat, barley or rye contamination) are not only suitable for gluten free diets but recommended due to the B vitamins, fiber and iron they add to a gluten free diet.  Yet at the same time, Canadian labeling laws, last updated in the 1990’s don’t allow oats to be labeled or advertised as gluten free.  This is why you only see “gluten free” on our US site even though it’s the same product as Canada.

As part of the upcoming allergen labeling law changes, Health Canada has recognized that their recommendations and the labeling laws don’t match.  Two weeks ago they published a 20 page document about their intent to change the law regarding oats and are asking for feedback from Canadian consumers and the food industry.  For more information, check out the link at:  http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/ahc-asc/media/advisories-avis/_2010/2010_75-eng.php