While on a “sprint shop” through the grocery store, this new gluten-free Ronzoni box caught my eye on the store shelves.
Ronzoni’s regular pasta is in a blue box, so this yellow really differentiated the gluten-free version. Other food purveyor’s have done this, for example Belle and Evans has blue and black boxes differentiating the gluten-free from the regular variety.
What struck me about the Ronzoni is that it was on the shelf with all of the wheat pasta and not on the “free-from” shelf that is a stand alone section of the grocery store. Chex Cereal and GF Bisquick are also with the regular mixes and cereals as far as I can see in my area grocery stores.
I am not sure who has the advantage…do the brands in the gluten-free section have the advantage? I know where the location of the gluten-free section, or the dedicated “free-from” shelf space, is in all of my stores and I frequent these sections with great regularity to stock up.
Or, do the brands sitting at eye level in the regular grocery aisles have the advantage? If I want the DeLallo Orzo or the Le Veneziane Farfalle, I know where to find it. But, because that yellow box just happened to be on the store shelf I was walking down for canned tomatoes, it caught my eye and I bought it.
All in all, it is great to see new products on shelves wherever they may be in the grocery store. I just want it to be easy to find them!
Kendall Egan