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Hi All--

My original post was asking people on the list who
might be interested in either receiving coupons for GF
food items from manufacturers or finding coupons in
their local papers - especially for those of us who
don't order items. My thoughts were specifically for
GF flours, since they are becoming more specialized
and not so mainstream, as rice flour is now. My
question also included those who do use the order
process.

Eight people simply indicated they thought coupons
would be a great idea. The remainder of the posts are
listed below. None are outright negative, but suggest
options for how coupons could be offered. Regardless,
I intended that the coupons could be used either with
orders or taken to a health food store or grocery to
purchase the product. Of course, that would require
that more stores carry more GF food items - which is
another issue altogether.

One option that wasn't offered that I thought of is,
since most manufacturers' web sites ask us to
register, it seems that using registered names who
indicate they would like to receive coupons would be
sent coupons. This would help defer newspaper
publishing costs.

Thanks to everyone who responded. There are some
terrific thoughts and suggestions! I think the replies
are a great indication that many of us are not only
feeling the burden of high cost GF food items, but are
wanting the choice of not having to contact
manufacturers ourselves and also not ordering just to
get savings.

I would like to receive responses from manufacturers
so that a beneficial situation for all could be found.
I'm willing to follow up and keep this issue going.
So, here's what many of you thought...Ayn

___
I would love to able to find coupons for gf food!  It
is so much more expensive and most stores never have
anything on sale.  I guess we're lucky when a store
carries it at all.
___
Coupons would be great, especially since the things
are so darned expensive anyway!  Shopping for
gluten-free food would seem more "normal" then, too!
___
Pamela's Cookies & Bob's Red Mill are probably the
only companies that are found frequently in regular
grocery stores.  Having a coupon & advertizing the
products are suitable for those on g.f. diets would
certainly promote celiac awarenes...
___
I am all over coupons for GF items. What a great idea!
I have used some forms of discounts through GF
publications such as "Living Without" Magazine and GF
newsletters. How else can we get coupons?
___
Do you belong to a support group?  We usually order
and hand out coupons for GF products at our meetings.
We also place large orders for our members so that
only one shipping cost is incurred. We order from the
GF food vendors off the internet and attend the annual
CD conferences where they give out free gf foods and
coupons.  The vendors will also send group
facilitators coupons it they ask for them.  If your
group puts out a newsletter, the vendors will sponser
your monthly meeting by sending free food samples if
you run their ad in your newsletter for that month.
___
Great idea!

There are coupons from Philly Swirl for their frozen
ices. I also go to the Boston Market web site and
print out coupons.
___
Probably the best way of convincing manufacturers to
offer coupons is in exchange for free advertising.

If you ran this idea past some Celiac publications,
both on- and off-line, you might find some editors who
jump at it.

Once a publication has a GF coupon section, they could
increase circulation by letting lists like ours know.
Higher circulation allows them to charge more for
their ads.
___
I'm kind of in the other boat. There is very little in
the way of GF items available locally, and I usually
have to order anything other than pasta or pancake mix
online. Our Kroger Plus offers some small variety in
the vegetarian section, but the Amy's Kitchen products
they carry are the highly spiced ones I cannot eat. My
health food store can't keep the
other Amy's frozen foods on the shelf, they sell out
so fast, and it's a little store.

I'd really like to see the Amy's Kitchen coupons in my
local newspaper.
___
As good as coupons is getting your flour at Asiatic
markets and mixing the kinds together that you want
for making bread.  Even with coupons the flours would
not be as cheap.

When I consider driving time I can throw together a
batch of muffins or cookies faster then I could drive
to buy some...with or without coupons.

There are not enough of us to make it worthwhile for
companies to have coupons in newspapers but they could
have the coupons on their websites for us to run off.
There are probably enough of us, just not enough of us
who are aware that we have CD.
___
I think that that is a great idea. I wonder why this
was never thought of before. I do know that the Gluten
Free Trading company sends flyers to their
customers and it would be great if all companies did
this. It would not have to be through newspapers
because that may increase the costs of our
foods because of the advertising cost. However they
could send out a monthly flyer indicating what is on
sale.
___
I do like getting coupons mailed directy to me from a
manufacturer. Many have done that when I called to
question the GF status of a product. I am always
polite on the phone or by email. To name a few that
have sent me coupons are:

Hellmann's mayonnaise
Thai Kitchen (from their web site)
BioNature (pasta)
Sargentos cheese

I like using coupons for GF items, I just don't link
getting them from the paper. Perhaps if health food
stores could sent their own flyers and offer
coupons, that would be great. Very few do that.

I have not done any mail order GF shopping myself. I'd
rather go to a store to buy my products.
___
I just had an experience of contacting a manufacturer
whose food was praised on this list, to inquire where
I could find it locally.  He sent me several coupons
for the purchase of the product.  I should thinkt hat
this list would be furnish a great incentive for
manufacturers and retailers alike to cultivate a
coupon business.  It shouldn't be too hard to
figure it out.  I know there have been companies who
made coupons available over the Internet. I agree that
this is a timely issue, since so many more
people are being diagnosed with every passing day (and
magazine article!)
___
I would be interested in knowing if you get any
responses from companies. I have no idea what it might
cost for advertisers to provide coupons in the Sunday,
or other advertising newspaper inserts.




























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