Gluten-free everywhere!! That’s how I felt at last week’s Natural Products Expo West in Anaheim, CA. This trade show, open only to businesses, features just about every item you can buy at a natural food store and with over 52,000 visitors and over 4,000 booths, it was HUGE.
I have attended this show every year since 1996 and, for the first time, I was overwhelmed by the sheer number of new gluten-free products. Some were from already-established companies who were launching a gluten-free line to their existing products such as King Arthur Flour’s new gluten-free mixes, French Meadow’s new gluten-free breads and pizzas; and Rudi’s and Udi’s (both Colorado companies) new gluten-free breads.
Some were companies with well-established gluten-free lines who introduced new gluten-free products such as gluten-free oat flour and quick-cooking oats from Bob’s Red Mill, or English muffins from Food for Life (the same company that makes brown rice flour tortillas) or Sunflower Cookies from Ener-G Foods) that taste just like peanut butter cookies but are made from sunflower seeds.
Then there were new products that were quite imaginative, such as Falafel Chips from Flamous Brands, which were crackers but made from healthy ingredients commonly found in falafel, such as beans.
I will start using some of these new products in the recipes we offer at www.GfreeCuisine.com. For example, we’ll soon offer an Egg Mac Breakfast Sandwich recipe that uses the new gluten-free English muffins. If your natural food store doesn’t carry these products yet, ask the manager to order them. Customer requests are often the driving force behind a store’s adoption of new products, so let your store know.
And, all of your well-known gluten-free companies were exhibitors as well such as Pamela’s, Glutino, Purefit energy bars, Orgran, Maple Grove (you know them as Pastariso pasta), Enjoy Life Foods, Thai Kitchen, and so on. They continue to bring us wonderful foods.
Another indication of gluten-free’s importance at this show was the display of books at my distributor’s booth. All of my cookbooks were on display, right next to the next-most-important category of cookbooks at the show, which was “raw” cookbooks. No other category of cookbooks received as much attention as those in the gluten-free and raw categories. That’s me standing next to the display of gluten-free cookbooks in the photo below.
So, rest assured that our gluten-free lifestyle garnered lots of attention last week and this is a good thing.
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