Food Allergy Support

I will be happy to move this to Main after a few days. I wanted more initial feedback than might be had in Main. 

We have Cub Foods near us, and they have an open bin of peanuts.  A HUGE open bin that takes up the entire end of a produce island--no lid.  This is in every Cub store apparently.  I have talked to a manager.

I also have many other options for grocery stores, albeit a little more expensive. And from what I've seen, their produce looks better. 

I'm interested in your thoughts about this if you're dealing with a peanut allergy.

I triple wash with joy. Then I triple wash again.  Never been an issue for me.

I don't mind the open nut bins. I'm pretty contact and aorosal reactive.

For peanuts, I don't necessarily shop elsewhere.  I just wash the produce really well.  And I sometimes buy other nuts from produce bulk bins (in the shell) because I can scrub those shells down with soap and water and then enjoy some relatively safe tree nuts (within my comfort zone).

I won't buy some kinds of produce at our local HFS with the help-yourself tubs of freshly made tofu.  Too much drippiness and risk of a contact reaction.  Heck, I don't walk on that side of the aisle if I can help it.

For the huge bowl of frequently tossed/aerosolized flour at the fresh pasta to order counter at WFM?  I buy absolutely no cut/packaged in-store cheese there, nothing made in-store, and anything bought (packaged or produce) from the entire store gets washed/wiped down.  Actually, I don't buy anything there.  I can't go in the store.  DH does the WFM shopping.  I go to Kroger, Trader Joe's, and some independent HFS. 

I generally buy produce wherever it looks the best. 

I wash my produce really well no matter what.  The pesticides, germs, other people having handled it with goodness knows what hands, etc...  Ick.  I wash it all.  So the peanuts would not really be much different for us than just washing off stuff that might make one of us ill. 

That said, it is rare around here to see that.  I do find nuts in shells in open bins at my produce market at Thanksgiving.  Dd is TNA as well as PA.  Never had a problem, but as I said, we wash everything very well. 

We definitely wash-wash-wash our produce, but I see NO reason to wipe down every.single.bloody.item that I bring home from the store.

Which is why I simply shop elsewhere-- the only exception is that I WILL buy some specialty items that I can't get elsewhere.  This was how we had to get Vegenaise for a while.   :-/

If there are other stores, I won't shop at a store with open bins of peanuts. There is one here and a few years ago we went, didn't go anywhere near the produce where the bins were, and dd had hives shortly after. I took it as a sign.

Since I'm the one doing the shopping, I buy, then wash. 

But there is one store in particular I would advise DS to avoid, as they not only have open sacks of peanuts, but just about every other nut under the sun located in the produce aisles.  ~)

I'm generally okay with the open bins on two conditions.

(1) No switcharoos. Nuts stay put in nutty area that I can generally avoid.
(2) I can buy the produce away from the other foods.

Shaw's violates number 1 condition as they are perpetually rotating the bags of peanuts everywhere, particularly the berries. The only produce I buy from them is bagged broccoli and bagged organic bananas. Whole Foods is borderline for me, compounded by how much dairy they place in the midst of all the produce as an upsell.

In the same vein I avoid trusted gluten free items at Target because it's often in aisles with bagged flour... which always ends up dusting all the products.

That leaves me with two places I typically shop from: BJs for produce and oil, and Amazon for gluten free items that are hard to find and relatively expensive. The additional bonus is that they are boxed, not having had to share shelf space, I don't have to put them in a contaminated cart and I don't have to put them on the contaminated checkout area.

If open bins of peanuts in produce dept we won't buy produce there.

I wanted to add a note about smaller mom & pop stores because I shop sometimes at what most people would call an ethnic market for produce I can't get at your standard grocery or it's plain cheaper. The way it probably operates is the mom & pop store gets its veg delivery in bulk. They then use like a table in a back room to sort it all out and bag it up for sale. Some of the places have plastic bagging so keep in mind if you see something in a plastic bag it doesn't mean it arrived that way. Use the same judgment you'd use for a farmer's market.

I would probably just shop elsewhere unless there were non-produce items I could only get there.  If only because I'd be uncomfortable with the produce, I wouldn't have wanted to bring dd in, and I hate having to to go two different places.

I need a "Depends" option.

During the holidays, our stores have nuts in open bins in the produce section but they are generally away from the produce.  I don't have a problem with that for DS2.  I have a bigger problem that the bakery is across from the produce section for DS1.  Regardless, I wash all produce anyway regardless of allergies.

I however refused to purchase veggies from our grocery store when they had a basket of peanuts in the produce cooler.  I constantly found peanuts in the green beans, broccoli, etc.  But I was able to bring a few grocery receipts from the competition and say look where I spent my money on produce and they removed them (it was not a big seller and something that they lost money on).

Bump

ajasfolks,
You may find it hard to find a supermarket that doesn't have open peanuts in our area.  I continue to shop at my market, which primarily has open bins of nuts around the holidays.  However, they keep adding things like make your own trail mix bars and grind your own peanut butters (right on an end cap for the bread).  DD is contact-reactive and I've never wiped down our groceries when she gets home.  As I've mentioned before, I'm a slacker mom and I'm lucky if I can even get myself to the supermarket on a biweekly basis, so wiping things down (that aren't leaking) just isn't going to happen.

I've been successful in getting our last Wegman's to make changes . . . but haven't tried new Wegman's yet to see what the situation there is (likely the pnut bins are in the candy-ish-bin area that is not co-located with produce?).

We won't buy produce at the Quantico commissary -- open bins of nut and peanuts, zero training as to X-contam and the mess . . . just a ZERO as to comprehension!

Quote from: ajasfolks2 on August 01, 2013, 02:48:49 PM
I've been successful in getting our last Wegman's to make changes . . . but haven't tried new Wegman's yet to see what the situation there is (likely the pnut bins are in the candy-ish-bin area that is not co-located with produce?).

We won't buy produce at the Quantico commissary -- open bins of nut and peanuts, zero training as to X-contam and the mess . . . just a ZERO as to comprehension!

I shop at the one off 28 in Dulles.  I'm not sure where things are put in the Leesburg location (I hate how dark their produce section is there).  At the Dulles location, there will be open bins of nuts among the produce (along with candy apples) in late fall through the holiday season.  There are bulk bins of nuts with the bulk foods (mostly bulk candy) and in the Dulles location that's at the end of the cookie and popcorn aisles. There's grind-your-own peanut butter station on an end cap in the small, dead-end-like bread section. Not far from the peanut butter machines (about 5 to 6 feet) is a make-your-own trail mix bar.  This is what's in the general shopping area and doesn't include the nut-crusted meats in the butcher's counter, the nuts on the brie in the cheese counter, or the items in the hot food section.  I think there's also a bulk food section in the organic section of the store.

I still shop at Wegman's because the prices are so much better than my closer Harris Teeter and the quality of meats and until recently the produce was also better.  However, I've been miffed at them for how poorly stocked they've been, expired dates on items on the shelves, and no longer carrying items we use. 

I do not worry about nuts in covered bins in bulk bins or elsewhere. Especially behind bakery or deli or prepared food windows. I don't buy anything there anyway. Not worried at all.

It's the GIANT open bins at Cub (maybe 4x4') and mid-sized bins at Rainbow. At Cub there are peanuts on the floor (whole shells and peanut bits) as well as peanut bits in at least one nearby bin. I saw. DH has seen people snack on peanuts in the produce section.

I refuse to buy produce at Cub and at Rainbow. And I only by a few items at Cub period. I haven't stepped in a Cub store since October.

It's too bad, because produce at other stores is more expensive. But I won't buy where there are open bins of peanuts.

A year or two ago our Walmart had open bins of pistachios. I saw an employee take a bunch of bananas that someone had left in the pistachio bin and put it back with the bananas. We've always washed all produce, even ones where you don't eat the skin, like bananas, but I'm a lot more careful about it since then.

At our Cub all of the specifically Allergy free foods (Enjoy Life, Cherrybrook) are one adjacent and over half an aisle. So about 10 feet away with a 4 foot tall aisle. They face away from the peanuts. The back of that aisle faces the peanuts.

I spoke to the manager about it. He acted like I was crazy. I've tweeted Enjoy Life and Cub about it (same tweet). They responded that they have no control over product placement.

Jessica that would freak me out. I mean it does deal me out when it happens. My Kroger in VA lined the apples with bags of peanuts. I told the manager. But the peanuts are inside the bags."  "You are mistaken if you think there is no peanut protein on the outside of the bags sir."  I also got him to stop pitting the peanut-covered apples on top of fruit areas. You could see peanuts all over.

Quote from: Macabre on August 01, 2013, 04:36:31 PM
At our Cub all of the specifically Allergy free foods (Enjoy Life, Cherrybrook) are one adjacent and over half an aisle. So about 10 feet away with a 4 foot tall aisle. They face away from the peanuts. The back of that aisle faces the peanuts.

I spoke to the manager about it. He acted like I was crazy. I've tweeted Enjoy Life and Cub about it (same tweet). They responded that they have no control over product placement.

Many years ago, our Whole Foods stocked the allergy friendly products under the make your own butter bar.  Yes, under.  Are you kidding me?  And the manager was an idgit when I complained.  Finally they moved them to another place that was safer.  Egads what a mess that was.

Open bins of nuts bother me less in the aisles of the produce section.  However green peanuts in the produce baskets drive me bonkers - there are peanuts everywhere in the fresh produce section as a result.  I campaigned to get one store to remove them but our store actually sells green peanuts (other store said it was a rare purchase for them and a money loss).  Just wish I could have them move them into the fresh cut fruit section (where everything is in containers) or bag them in the back.  I hate Walmart produce and our Kroger is the dregs.