[Prairie Girl]

I just wanted to warn fellow Regina, SK people about the flours at Old Fashioned Foods. I am not sure about all locations, but my mom was picking up some flours for me the other day from the south albert location and the label now said "may contain traces of flour." She spoke with the manager about this and the manager explained that they now bag their gluten free flours on the same day as regular flour. They wash everything, but she admitted that they may package gluten free flours right after regular flours, even though dangerous flour is still likely floating around in the air.
My mom explained that this does not work for those who are celiac and how this is a serious concern. They gave her the name of a company to order from and that is what we did. I will no longer be buying anything that is bagged in the store which makes me sad. It is a pain to order flour and have it shipped. I wanted to warn others and also raise awareness b/c if many people address this in the store, maybe they will be more cautious and do their gluten free flours on a separate day as they used to.
Maybe one day we will be able to buy our flour and foods at the regular grocery store! How nice that would be! And SAFE flour!!

[home_based_mom]

Prairie Girl, on Apr 24 2008, 02:12 PM, said:

I just wanted to warn fellow Regina, SK people about the flours at Old Fashioned Foods. I am not sure about all locations, but my mom was picking up some flours for me the other day from the south albert location and the label now said "may contain traces of flour." She spoke with the manager about this and the manager explained that they now bag their gluten free flours on the same day as regular flour. They wash everything, but she admitted that they may package gluten free flours right after regular flours, even though dangerous flour is still likely floating around in the air.
My mom explained that this does not work for those who are celiac and how this is a serious concern. They gave her the name of a company to order from and that is what we did. I will no longer be buying anything that is bagged in the store which makes me sad. It is a pain to order flour and have it shipped. I wanted to warn others and also raise awareness b/c if many people address this in the store, maybe they will be more cautious and do their gluten free flours on a separate day as they used to.
Maybe one day we will be able to buy our flour and foods at the regular grocery store! How nice that would be! And SAFE flour!!

Have your mom suggest to them that they bag the gluten free flours FIRST!

If they are interested in the health and welfare of their customers, they should be able to make such a simple adjustment as that.

[reginagirl]

I had the above sent to me and was concerned so I contacted Old Fashioned Foods. I got a girl who was really informative and told me that they had to change the labeling on the products due to the Health department regulations on what can and can not be classified as gluten free. What she told me was that no matter when they pack the gluten free flours they can not claim that they are gluten free because their stores handle products that are not gluten free. The only way that anyone can claim to have gluten free products is if they have a facility that is 100% gluten free products coming in. Due to the possible cross contamination of products they felt necessary to ensure costumers are not affected by their products, hence the removal of gluten free on their rice flour, and other gluten free products that they package.