Hello Canadians
I am wondering what the grocery stores are like where you shop, in terms of the produce section. Are there loose bins of nuts, or are there only packages of nuts available? My local Safeway (B.C.) carries loose nuts in bins right in the produce section, and also bags of closed peanuts and treenuts.
I have written a letter to Canada Safeway headquarters and have also sent a letter to the local store manager to see if they can remove the small bins of loose nuts from the produce section all together. My argument concerns the cross-contamination of all produce, and the scattering of peanut and pistachio shells and nuts all around the store, on the floors and in the shelving. I spoke with the new local manager yesterday who told me that "all Safeways are set up like this" and that he has "never heard of any concerns such as this before." I told him about the severity of the allergy, that 500,000 Canadians (and counting) deal with this allergy on a daily basis and that this would not be the last time he would hear of concerns with nut allergy.
Has anyone else written their store headquarters in Canada about this issue? Have you contacted your local store managers? Or do you shop in stores where there are no nuts in the produce section? Which stores are these?
Hi Kim
When I lived in Calgary (until March 2001) my safeway originally had open bins of peanuts in the produce section. The Calgary allergy network ran a campaign where we submitted a petition to all of the grocery stores asking them to place nuts and peanuts in covered bins or sealed packages and they were all changed. Although many do still sell loose nuts or peanuts, they are now in covered bins. Loblaws, who owns the superstores now only sells peanuts in packages and not loose. With a campaign, I think the same thing could be requested for tree nuts.
Here is the link from when we discussed this (way back in 1999!)
[url="http://uumor.pair.com/nutalle2/peanutallergy/Forum1/HTML/000157.html"]http://uumor.pair.com/nutalle2/peanutallergy/Forum1/HTML/000157.html[/url]
Good luck
deb
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