Shopping with food allergies in the UK

From travelling abroad, and chatting online to people who are planning on travelling here, I've discovered that sometimes you need local knowledge to assist you in finding what you're looking for. This post is aimed at those from outside the UK, who are wondering how they'll get on, if they come to the UK! BUT if you're new to food allergies and living here in the UK, you may also find this post helpful!

Supermarkets

Britain has a number of large supermarket chains. Some of which are better than others at catering to the Free From market. Foods that are produced particularly for those who have special diets, are often lumped together in a section known as 'Free From'. Please note that this is not a legal term, but just one that seems to have made its way in to general usage!

Mostly, the Free From aisles in UK supermarkets often seem to major on those who are gluten free, but they often stock a large range of dairy free milk products too - they're just usually found next to the UHT milk or in the chiller section! However, if you examine food labels, you can often find other products that may prove suitable - if you apply directly to the supermarkets, they can send you a list.

Something for everyone! This is the range of dairy free milk available in one Tesco Extra store.

Unfortunately, if you are suffering from other allergies, such as egg or nut, you might not find yourself quite so well served, although Tesco have started to display egg free logos on some of their Free From products.

I find Tesco and Sainsbury's tend to have the biggest ranges - but you usually need to locate their big out of town stores. The area tends to dictate how good the range might be. If it's based in a wealthier area, for example, the Free From range tends to be much larger and more varied. It's what we, in the UK, refer to as a 'postcode lottery'.

That said, you can often find a few dairy free milks in most smaller supermarkets, even in those that are convenience store size, but don't expect too much else, except maybe a soya-based spread or yoghurt!

Sainsbury's 'Free From' aisle, Ashford, Kent

If the Tesco is as good as the one at Brooklands, in Surrey, then you'll find a brilliant Free From aisle, Freezer section and also a chiller section. As well as a varied range of long life and chilled dairy free milk, and the usual chilled spreads, such as Pure, and soya-based cheese and yogurt products, Tesco have recently started selling great dairy free dessert products, such as Pudology. 

In the right Tesco, you can also find Co-yo, a dairy and soya free yogurt product, that up until now, you'd only find in a health food shop, as well as Violife - a dairy and soya free cheese, that again has been hard to get hold of, until now, but is proving popular among the dairy free! There's even dairy free iced coffee, although that's located near the 'normal' iced-coffee, in my store! That's the funny thing about Tesco - it seems there's no standard lay-out. In some stores, some of the chilled Free From products are dotted about and not kept together, so keep your eyes peeled!

Tesco 'Free From' chilled range

Sainsbury's, meanwhile, doesn't have much more than dairy free milk, some spread and soya yoghurt in their chiller cabinet, but their Free From freezer department has a few gems and I do appreciate the expansion of Sainsbury's free from confectionery. It's where I like to go for dairy free chocolate! They stock the very popular dairy and gluten free chocolate known as 'Moo Free,' alongside their own brand and Kinnerton, which is also nut free.

I also like Asda, whose range has definitely improved, over the last year, and Waitrose, which tends to stock more higher end free from merchandise, such as Booja Booja. I'm so thrilled that I can now go to Waitrose and buy a fabulous dairy free ice cream imported from the US. I am not such a fan of Morrison's or Co-op, as, in my experience,  their range tends to be quite small, although I have heard that some Morrisons stock a dairy free cheese known as 'Cheezly'. UPDATE May 2016: Morrison's have recently expanded their Free From ranges- they now stock a lot more products, so if you live nearby, take a look!

'Free From' aisle, Asda, Chandler's Ford, Hampshire

Marks and Spencers have finally begun to take note of the Free From market. The other year they brought out some some gluten free products and last year followed suite with a 'Made Without Dairy' range of milks, dairy free spread and even chocolate! However, only the larger ones seem to really be worth visiting. 

Smaller chains such as Aldi and Lidl, don't really stock much in the way of Free From products, down my way, but do seem to flirt with the idea from time to time! I got really excited when Aldi began to stock a few items not so long ago - a loaf and some soup, but these soon disappeared. However, Lidl has just recently advertised a gluten free promotion.


Ocado

Is an online supermarket, but is not available in the whole of the UK. You may need a UK-based friend or relative to supply an address, to where you can get your stuff ordered. They have a fantastic Free From range, which is much better than the other supermarkets, and their website has a very useful filtering system to help you work out which products are suitable for you. The only draw-back is the delivery fee! Find out more here.


Vegan & Health Food Shops

There are other options for Free From shopping other than the supermarkets - I often visit my local independent health food shops. Independent stores can be slightly more expensive, but often stock products that chains will not and, in my experience, might be open to trying or ordering in products that you've seen online, but can't buy elsewhere!


Holland and Barrett

Holland and Barrett is a well-known health food chain store, found in high streets, throughout the UK. It very much depends on the shop as to how good the Free From range happens to be. Some stores have a chiller and freezer section and some do not. Bizarrely, the best stores are not always in the biggest towns. So, for example, I live near Southampton, Winchester and Eastleigh. Of all of these, Eastleigh is the smaller town, but has the better range!

Good branches of Holland and Barrett will stock a good range of dairy free UHT milk and yogurt, including this dairy and soya free yogurt. They sell Booja Booja dairy and soya free ice cream, some gluten free and Vegan frozen pies, as well as a variety of dairy free cheeses. They are also expanding their chilled ranges to include Violife cheese and Pudology's new dairy and soya free yogurts!!

Dairy free chocolate can also be found here, particularly at Easter and Christmas, when their range quite noticeably expands!


London

London has some amazing Health Food and Vegan shops where you can find some great Free From products:

Whole Foods Market The biggest is the one in Kensington, where, in fact, there's so much choice, it's bewildering! Whole Foods Market also have a cafe!

Vegan X Is a Vegan clothing and food store, based near King's Cross.

Whole Foods Market, Clapham Junction, London

Home Counties

The Home Counties (the outlying counties clustered around London) are also generally quite well served - both by the supermarkets, and health food shops, on the whole.

If you find yourself in Surrey, check out Food for Thought is a good-sized health food shop that has two branches in Surrey - one in Kingston and the other (larger one) in Guildford.

In Hampshire, there's a large Vegan store in Southampton, which I have yet to visit!


The Regions

However, here are one or two gems out in the more regional areas of the UK that are worth knowing about:

Alternative Stores in Newcastle also have an online store that delivers throughout the UK

Goodness Direct are mainly an online Health Food Shop, but are based in the Northampton are. You can pick up your shopping direct from their base in Daventry, if you are based nearby.

And here (based on personal experience) is where to go on the Isle of Wight!

However, keep your eyes peeled, 'cos Free From food can turn up in the strangest of places! I've noted some short runs of dairy free milk and other products in 99p shops, whilst some garden centres, and farm shops also now stock free from. Just look at these products, found in Haskin's Garden Centre, near Southampton:

OK, I admit it's mostly gluten free! 

Scotland

From what I can gather Scotland, like any parts of the north, doesn't seem quite as well served as some other parts of the UK. 


Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland is another case in point, altogether! Shipping seems to be the major problem, in this case. For anyone travelling to this part of the UK, I would suggest you contact Laura of Dairy Free Kids (via Face Book or @dairyfreekids, on Twitter). She's from the Republic of Ireland, but is probably still likely to know more than I about shopping in Northern Ireland!



Reading Food Labels

All food products in the UK must be labelled according to the EU's new regulations see here for clarification. This is meant to help food shoppers with allergies find out which food will be suitable for them. It also applies to food sold in cafes/restaurants whether sold loose or packed. 

Some manufacturers may include extra advice, concerning the risks of any products made alongside other products containing relevant allergens, but they are not required to do so, by law. In fact, sometimes this can be more of a hindrance, as some stores, afraid of being prosecuted seem to slap 'may contain' warnings on almost everything! 

If you have a dairy allergy, take particular care when buying Vegan products listed as 'dairy free' they may not be quite as free from dairy as you assume - they're often manufactured on the same lines as dairy products, so check their labels! I have been caught out by this several times, so do take care!


Over to you!

Do you live here in the UK, and have something to add? Or, have you visited here and made some great finds? Please add your top tips in the comments section below! 

Many thanks and Happy Free From Shopping!


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Avoiding the hop - shopping Free From online

Anyone else do the 'Hop'? 

No I don't mean a dance, as such, I mean the process by which you do your weekly Free From shopping. If you're anything like us, it means hopping from one supermarket to the next, in order to locate the various products that we need. I just can't get everything I need from one place - this is compounded by the fact that we are dealing with more than one kind of allergy. 

Two supermarkets near me stock the liquid I need to do my washing (to prevent 'Baby's' eczema), one of these stocks the gluten free pasta I prefer, either of these might have the bread I can tolerate, neither of them will stock 'Baby's' dairy free chocolate drops. And that's just the beginning! Some of the products I need are only obtainable from health food shops. 

To make things easier, for ourselves, we have found it generally makes sense to do some/most of our shopping online. I have investigated a few other ways of getting Free From items - I visit our local health food shops fairly often, but I wanted to buy some biscuits that I found at the Free From show, and found that I could not find them locally. It was then that I turned to the Internet.


Amazon

I shop fairly often online with Amazon for various items, but was astonished to discover that you can also buy some Free From products from them - including my biscuits! However, you have to be prepared to buy in bulk. The biscuits weren't too bad - just four packets at a time, but ice cream cones by the same company have to be bought in packs of six boxes.  Therefore you need to consider whether you have got the space to store it, something which (if you're anything like us) we don't have a lot of!!

Pros

• If items are eligible for 'Super Saver Delivery,' you get a small amount of money off and don't have to pay extra for delivery.
• Buying in bulk can be cheaper.
• Using Prime can save money on delivery costs.
• You can get items that you can't find locally.

Cons

• They can't always specify a day/time for delivery, so you need to be at home during work hours to receive a delivery. If you are not in very much during the week (let's face it most people are at work during the week) and do not have an understanding work place (who'll let you receive parcels at work) then you'd find it difficult to shop with them. 
• Amazon purchases are often over packaged - not very eco-frendly.
• You need space to store items bought in bulk.
• You have to know which product you are looking for, when using their website - I haven't found a 'Free From' section!
• you can now buy some products within two hours - for an extra fee of course!

Goodness Direct

I've also experimented with shopping online from Goodness Direct - they're like an online health food store. I'd heard of them through various avenues and thought I'd give them a try, to see how we got on. However, having tried it once, although as a first time customer they've sent me a 10% discount code for my next order, I'm not sure that it will be an avenue that I'll be exploring again all that soon - unless they have products that I really want, that I really can't get elsewhere. This is mainly because of delivery problems.

To be fair, it wasn't Goodness Direct's fault - it was the delivery firm that couldn't seem to operate the door entry system to our block of flats, but frustrating nonetheless, as I will not get those two days of my life back! 

I wouldn't have worried too much, if it wasn't for the fact that I had ordered some chilled items. I was worried that they would perish unless they arrived fairly soon - which was why I had waited in for them. As it was, I had to dispatch The Hub off to collect them from the depot when he got home from work (rather than wait for them to try and redeliver the next day).

Pros

• Good if you don't have much access locally to good independent health food stores or if you don't have well-stocked supermarkets nearby (although Goodness Direct say they can't deliver chilled or fresh produce to some rural locations). 
• Wide range of products.
• They highlight common allergens and list ingredients for each product.
• Delivery is free (except for chilled/frozen items) if you spend £35 on products - this can easily be managed, especially if you buy in bulk.
• Delivery is free for all goods, if you spend over £75 on products.
• You can pick up your order from Goodness Direct, if you live near their base (Daventry, Northamptonshire). You need to give 24 hours notice but this way, you can avoid delivery charges. Great if you live near enough!

Cons

• Like Amazon, they can't specify a delivery day/time.
• They charge £3.50 extra for ordering frozen/chilled products - for extra packaging.
• You have to order a minimum of six frozen/chilled products at a time - apparently to keep them cool during transit.
• They don't deliver weekends, bank holidays or days following bank holidays either (as I discovered).
• They can't deliver chilled/frozen products to some rural locations.
• There's not much that they can do about it, but I worry that their chilled packaging is not very 'eco-friendly' - what can you do with gel packs that have been enclosed with chilled/frozen goods, in order to dispose of them without harming the environment?

Ocado

Having investigated these other options, to be honest, my preferred form of online shopping (I'm truly sorry for those of you, who have issues with this company) remains Ocado.

Lemon Van - all the vans are named!

Why Ocado?

I'm not paid by them to say this (or anyone, for that matter) but we choose Ocado for the following main reasons:

• You can book a specific time slot - A major plus, in my book! I hate waiting around for a delivery and not knowing when it's going to arrive (as I'm doing today, in fact). With Ocado, we can book a specific time slot and the delivery runs pretty reliably to time. In fact, they are usually early, but that's probably because we live so close to their depot.
• They stock a good range of ordinary groceries as well as an expanding range of Free From products, so although we still can't get everything, we can get most of our needs this way. 
• If they're out of stock, you can usually see this on their website - rather than finding out when they turn up at your door, with some random substitute. This way, you can choose your own alternative products.
• There are very few substitutions - when we shopped with another supermarket in this way, there were quite frequent substitutions, some of which were fairly random. Even when Ocado do substitute, they do so intelligently, so we rarely turn the substitute down.
• They price match with Tescos on branded products - OK, this may be off-set by the delivery charges but then we're saving on our own petrol by reducing the number of journeys that we might have to make in the week.
• They appear to be open to suggestions - you can recommend products that you'd like them to stock. This doesn't mean that they'll automatically take up your suggestion, but it's a step in the right direction. They now stock my pasta - one less reason to do my shopping hop.
• They sucked us in, with a good deal on the delivery (quoting The Hub here)!

Other pros:

• Products are placed in colour-coded bags - green for frozen, red for chilled and purple for general groceries.
• Chilled and frozen items are stored at the correct temperature during transit.
• They will carry your groceries in for you.
• They recycle your shopping bags - they take away any old plastic shopping bags.
• Sometimes they send you a sample of some product that they think you might like - not always useful, but can be sometimes!

Cons:

• There's a lot of ground that they just don't cover - yet! Sorry to those of you who can't yet get Ocado deliveries in your area. I'm rooting for you!
• You need to spend a minimum of £40, but these days, that is fairly easy to do anyway.
• Eggs might get broken in transit, but you can call them about it and complain. To avoid this, we now buy our eggs locally. The same also goes for bread - which can get squished.

Anything else?

• For some reason long life milk substitutes are often put in bags containing refrigerated items. Not sure why!!
• Sometimes, one item is randomly placed in a carrier bag all of its own, which seems a bit wasteful. I just hope this is offset by recycling the bags! 
• If you return your bags they now pay you 5p a bag, but thie isn't terribly accurate if you're returning them in bulk!
• I like my raw meat packaged separately from my cooked meat and yoghurts - Ocado don't see this is a problem, but I am not convinced! Therefore we no longer buy these in the same order.
• Apparently if you live in an area where Ocado don't yet deliver, you can register online with them anyway, and they will notify you when they do. However, don't hold your breath, if you live in Scotland, or anywhere where there isn't a Waitrose, as that's where Ocado get most of their products!

Obviously, these are not the only options for shopping Free From online. They just happen to be the ones that I have explored so far.

Please note: 

This post is not an advert. I have not been paid to write this post. I am not sponsored in any way, even by advertising. I do not receive products free to review, although I have often been offered them. This is to try and maintain an unbiased approach. All views expressed are my own (unless I've asked for The Hub's or Kiddo's).

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Shopping with Food Allergies in the UK


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Alternative Stores



Fancy a date... at the Allergy and Free From Show 2014?

So how about you? How do you get on with Free From shopping?