Whole Foods Deli Dilemma

I used to love the sandwiches at Whole Foods. Specifically the "Green Mountain" sandwich at the Whole Foods in Belmar. It consists of portobello mushrooms, pesto, cheese, greens and oven roasted tomatoes on one of they yummy bakery breads - delish! After going gluten-free I had to essentially give up the sandwich. Then one day, silly me, thought to ask if they offered gluten-free bread. It really wasn't a silly request. The Belmar store has a huge gluten-free section and offers several kinds of gluten-free bread. But I was told that they don't offer it in the sandwich deli. Something about cross-contamination and not being a certified gluten-free kitchen. I thought that was pretty weak -- they could warn customers that they can't guarantee gluten-free because of possible cross contamination, buyer beware.

A while later I thought I would ask again. This time I was told that they didn't carry gluten-free bread because they didn't have enough requests for it and the bread would go bad before it was all used and they couldn't afford to take that financial hit. Hmm, when selling a small container of cut fruit for $7.50 a container, I would think they could afford to toss a $5 load of bread once a week. Anyway, I was told that I could buy my own bread in the store and they would use that to make my sandwich.

Since then, my hubby was in the Cherry Creek store and he overheard a woman ordering a gluten-free sandwich -- no hassle. Then we were in the Golden store on Friday and I asked if they had gluten-free bread. The attendant told me, "Yes! We offer Udi's." I told him of my Belmar experiences and he said, "I am going to give you your sandwich for free tonight." Wow! What a difference in attitude between the stores.

Belmar - get on board here. If Golden can give me a sandwich for free, you certainly can afford to throw away a loaf of gluten-free bread once in a while. By the way, if you posted in the deli that you had gluten-free bread available, you would probably get a lot more customers requesting it!