Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Risky Selection

One of the endless tasks in living with food allergies is reading package labels and ingredient lists. From party snacks to groceries, we have to be diligent in looking for allergens – like peanuts – or possible trace amounts.

We’ve found our favourite brands – those that we know and love and use daily – and brands that we need to avoid. One of the in-store brands that we absolutely love is the Compliments brand from the Sobeys family of stores (see Camping with Allergies), because of their clarity in allergy labelling. Sadly, we’ve had to add the Selection brand from the Metro family of stores to our “do not touch” list.

In an attempt to find allergy information for baking supplies, Krystyne called the customer service number and was told that there are no allergy warnings on any of that brand’s packaging. The reason given was that the manufacturing facilities change often enough to (they feel) preclude them from changing the labelling.

The customer service rep on the other end of the phone was very understanding – she has friends with food allergies – and she recommended to us that we avoid the Selection line entirely to err on the side of caution.

So we will be avoiding the Selection brand whenever we come across it in our shopping, at least until the national legislation on food labelling for allergens comes through. However, to the Metro chain’s credit, they do carry a number of products that are CAC-certified to be free from specific allergens.

1 comment:

  1. Disappointing to hear that from Metro. They have done such a great job with rebranding the Dominion stores and renovating so many of them. Its too bad that their labeling will be what keeps us away from shopping there. Thanks for sharing this info.

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