<<Disclaimer: Verify this information before applying it to your situation.>>

Hi folks,

I got a swift reply from Rachel Holtzman, RD, Nutritionist for Trader
Joe's as her e-mail was sent to me from one of our listmates.  Here is
what she had to say:

Dear Diana,
Thank you for forwarding this letter to my attention.  We
are very concerned with having accurate information in our stores.   I
just found out about these mistakes today.  I apologize for the
inconvenience.  We do make every effort to be accurate and provide as
many gluten free items as possible.  This list is done by hand and these
were human errors.  Also, it is always important to check labels -
ingredients do change.  In reply to one of the comments - we never had
an email for customer service. There is nothing we are trying to hide.

After I read your email I immediately sent a corrected version of the
gluten free list to our website (this will take a few days to get
posted), sent a new copy to the printer, asked our warehouse to dispose
of all gluten free lists (there are a lot - they were just ordered!) and
requested that the stores recycle all the incorrect lists.

As I wrote before, we care about providing correct information to our
customers.  We know people count on these lists and expect them to be
accurate.  We apologize again for the inconvenience and will have the
matter corrected ASAP.

Thanks again for sharing this information with me and thanks for
shopping with us.  Please feel free to share this information with your
group.

Rachel Holtzman, RD
Nutritionist for Trader Joe's


 -----Original Message-----
From: Allen Brown [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Monday, February 12, 2001 12:33 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Fw: Trader Joe's GF List


  Dear Rachel,

  I am forwarding a letter that I posted to the Celiac list serve.  I
was given you e-mail address by one of the list mates.  As you can see,
I am very disappointed in the new gluten free list, and am now afraid to
eat some of the food I bought. I have been a happy camper since I found
Trader Joe's until now. After spending anywhere from $250..00-350.00 per
every 4 weeks or so, and traveling a distance to get there, at this point
I'm not so sure that I can eat what I bought this past weekend, certainly
not the imitation crab! I am passing the following information on
because I think you should know that people's health are at stake.  If
there are blatantly gluten laden foods on the list, what foods could
possibly have hidden gluten in them?

  Diana Brown
  North Kingstown, RI