Wonderful Ingles commercial

There is an absolutely fantastic TV commercial that Ingles (grocery chain) is running in our market.  In the spot, a mom is talking about her child, who is also in the commercial, having celiac disease and how great it is that they can find gluten-free products at Ingles.  I never tire of watching it - it's as uplifting as can be!

Back in October, I ran into the Ingles Dietitian, Leah McGrath, at a gluten-free event in Atlanta.  She explained that the mom and child in the commercial are real customers.  They are not actors, but normal folks Leah helped find in the community to make the commercial.  Isn't that amazing?!  That is certainly not common these days - a real family representing themselves in a TV commercial.  It's simply wonderful!

Ingles is the only grocer in our market that has done any commercials about gluten-free products and in fact, they've done several to date.  The latest installment is either the second or third one they've produced that specifically mentions gluten-free products.  I remember the first one I saw had a guy asking where the gluten-free pancake mix was in an Ingles store.  I was so stunned by it that I almost fell off my chair!

Kudos to Ingles for knowing the gluten-free consumer is not part of a quickly fading fad.  Not only does the Southeast grocer have an extensive and growing list of gluten-free products on shelves and in freezers at many of their stores, they know how important it is to let potential customers know they have them available!   

Katz Gluten Free arrives at Ingles!

Katz Gluten Free is a company that someone from Chattanooga told me about via a comment about gluten-free bread on Celiac-Disease.com.

Eventually, the company ended up sending me a goodie box of many different things to try, but the only thing I needed from the line were the Challah rolls. It turns out that they work great as a whole wheat type hamburger bun!

The mini Challah - or dinner rolls - in the line are as delicious as the larger size. They are the same thing of course, just smaller. The smaller rolls work great for sliders if you're into eating small burgers. Anyway, for whatever reason, Katz Gluten Free items have been missing at Atlanta stores - until now. Leah, the Ingles dietitian, tweeted about the dinner rolls being on the way to Ingles stores here a while back. I went into the location nearest us to look for them but they'd not arrived at that time.

Finally, last week I found out the Katz rolls were at the Ingles near us so we headed there that evening. There were only four packs and I didn't want them to sell out before I arrived since I only had one Challah roll in the freezer (not one bag - one roll!). The Katz dinner rolls are in the freezer next to Udi's bread (which is only $3.98 with your Ingles card or $4.39 without it!) and I bought three of the four packs left. The small rolls are a perfect dinner roll, but they also make a mean pb&j sandwich. Yes, it's a weird combination but trust me - it's really delicious!

Ingles is the only mainstream grocery store in this area that acts swiftly to satisfy their gluten-free customers requests. The smaller a company, the faster change can come about and that is very evident when looking at Ingles. In fact, it's surprising how fast they can change with the times. On the other hand, when I asked Publix to bring in the gluten-free cookie dough from Immaculate Baking (which Publix already orders from), they brought in four other cookie dough flavors in the line, but not the gluten-free option. Special thanks to Ingles - a company that truly understands how profitable the gluten-free market can be. It's a win-win situation for them and us!