gluten free familyA mum's blog about gluten-free living in Australia

Before I get down to some more of the nitty gritty issues that arose from the Gluten Free Expo last weekend, I thought it might be helpful for those who couldn’t make it to get a little run-down of some of the new products at the show.

Cakes and bread led the charge as usual – but there was also some very interesting additions with the number of suppliers to this market growing ever larger.

Lets begin with new kids on the block, Vitarium, who have been releasing products at a rate of knots. In coming months you will see a bunch of new cake mixes including low fat versions of  chocolate cake and muffins, multi-purpose cake mix and muffins, and some
crumpets. They are excited about the arrival of a new natural sweetner called Natvia helps to keep the calorie count down (we shall be investigating this further down the track).

Simply Wize recently brought a new bread mix to the supermarket shelves – now they have added Nocchi to their range. I bought some today and will be testing it out for lunch.

The makers of our favourite frozen convenience foods, Bayview – who brought us chicken nuggets and fish bites and a bunch of other tasty kids favourites – are preparing to launch a line of calimari. They are still deciding whether it will be salt and pepper calimari or plain (one would be for the grownups and the other for kids – so I guess from a selfish perspective I know which I would prefer!).

Melindas already sells a range of sumptuous sounding cakes and puddings in the cute pink packaging. Now she has added Risotto Cakes and Lemoncurd Cakes to her collection. I have one of each and can’t wait to try them.

Freelicious – yes the guys who brought us the  jatz-like biscuits late last year have beefed up their range with some new bite-sized treats called Pizza nibblers. They have also got a new range of plain tea biscuits (for the grownups) and Buddy bites for the less grownup.

Well & Good already has a fabulous chocolate mud cake in the shops, which is free of many of the problematic ingredients like corn and soy. A new bread mix (with additional recipe cards) and all-purpose cupcake mix is about to hit the shelves along with a muffin mix and marble cake. The cupcake will come with icing and sprinkles.

Orgran has released a range of new multigrain cereal called Os with quinoa – in  chocolate, plain and wildberry flavours.  It was also showing off some new animal shape pasta which we will be trying out in the future.

Freedom Food delivers yet more cereal boxes – this time at the more colourful end of the market with the introduction of cocoa puffs (think cocoa pops without gluten) and Tropicos (think fruit loops without gluten). With natural colours and added fibre, brekky just got a bit sweeter for some.

The bread mix that so impressed us recently from FG Roberts won’t make it to retailers shelves because they say the category is too croweded. Its a crying shame because their bread mix is quite wonderful. With soy as one of its main ingredients, though, not everyone would be able to enjoy it – so a new mix has been released under the FG Roberts badge. This one is called Palmira’s multipurpose bread mix for making small loaves and rolls – and is egg, dairy, soy, maize and yeast free. I can’t wait to try it out.

From bread mixes to readymade loaves, Dovedale has released a large batch of new products including: Multiseed chia bread, Rice chia buns, Rice chia Rolls, chocoates chia cookies, chocolate chia muffins and chocolate chia cake. The Lifestyle bakery has also added a  new chia loaf to its range.

Given the rising popularity of chia  – you can expect us to post about very soon!

LH