There is a new grocery store in my neighborhood, a No Frills. No Frills is part of the President’s Choice chain, and this location replaced a Super Valu in a local strip mall. Having never been to, or even seen, a No Frills before I didn’t know what to expect from this new store.
The Super Valu was a great grocery store. It was a smaller store, and a bit more expensive then the local Superstore, but the two great things about this store were that it had a deli, and carried many gluten free items. A previous manager at this store was Celiac, and he started bringing in a lot of gluten free items; breads, cookies, crackers, pizzas, pasta, etc…
Since the No Frills would be technically replacing the Super Valu, and was a President’s Choice store, as was the Super Valu, I expected a few similar items to the Super Valu. I didn’t really expect the range of items they had, but I had thought they might carry a few breads, or even rice pasta (especially rice pasta!). My boyfriend and I checked out the store the day it opened, and explored it a little bit. It resembles a Superstore in that it carries the PC brand and customers bag their own groceries. The store has a large produce section, an ok sized baked goods section (not that I really paid that much attention to this!), many aisles of dry goods, a large freezer section and a moderately sized meat department.
This No Frills is a typical grocery store that really has no frills; as in no extras. No deli, and even without this, their selection of sandwich meats or cold cuts is very small, almost no name brands besides maybe Coke and Pepsi, and definitely no gluten free products. After perusing the store my boyfriend and I discovered that all of the treats I had come to expect from the Super Valu had definitely not transferred over to the new store. No breads, no cookies, no crackers, no pizzas, and…no pasta. That’s right, no rice pasta. I wasn’t really that surprised about not having most of these items, but the store not having rice pasta I actually found shocking. Most stores carry rice pastas these days. I’m pretty sure even the Shopper’s Drug Mart down the street carries rice pasta!
If I weren’t Celiac I probably wouldn’t notice that this No Frills doesn’t carry any gluten free items. This store serves most people relatively easily. But, I am Celiac. And this store does not serve me easily. As this store is only five minutes from my house it is very convenient to shop at, and so I do for some items. But for anything gluten free I have to drive about 15 minutes to the nearest Superstore. So while the No Frills can be convenient in one way, this added shopping trip is very inconvenient.
So, the round up on the No Frills. If you are a gluten full person, shop away! If you are gluten free and enjoy a few treats now and then, shop away-at a different store!!
