Oat milk and other stuff

Hmm, I think I'm beginning to lose my love affair with Waitrose for suitable foods. In the last few weeks they have:

- put up the price of Oat milk to £1.39 (but so have Sainsbury and Tesco), adding an extra £4 a week just for my 'milk',

- stopped selling Dove's Farm Gluten Free White Bread Mix (I can't use their plain flour mix as my mum is sensitive to Buckwheat) and replaced it with Bob's Red Mill, which is good (if a little salty), but more then £1 more expensive a pack,

- stopped selling Clearspring fruit puree pots AND Ella's 5 packs of fruit pouches (not the baby ones) - both of which were my staple packed lunch puddings for the boys. My local Tesco sells Fruit pouches, but with added flavouring, why does puree fruit need extra flavour added?

(Update May 2012 - Dove's Farm Bread Flour and Ella's pouches back at Waitrose - I obviously wasn't the only person to complain!)

So I'm back to trying to shop online. 

ASDA are selling Oatly at £1.15, but don't sell the oat cream, the chocolate one or suitable puddings. 


(Update May 2012 - Oatly back to £1.39 at ASDA!)

Sainsbury's have finally started selling the enriched Oatly, but at the same price as Waitrose and don't sell Oatly cream (they do have fruit pouches though!). 

Tesco suddenly seem to have a much better selection online. They now stock all Oatly products. 

So does the saving 24p/l on the price for my milk make up for having to pay delivery charges for 2 different companies. 

On another week where I've had GP's complaining about the cost of prescribing hypoallergenic formula, I wish there was something we could do to reduce the impact of a basic food shop for an allergic child.

I can easily get through the following in a week:

10 litres 'milk' (usually closer to 20 in my house)

500g pasta

1.5kg bread flour

1.5kg plain flour

500g margarine

On Tesco online tonight, this would cost £11.62. For the equivalent suitable for milk, egg soya and wheat free diet it cost £23.30! That's a 200% increase on some basic items, not luxury items. This isn't a lifestyle choice. 

Tesco have just announced the launch of their new dairy free range of chilled foods (as well as an expanded free from range in general), just wish they had had the foresight to make some of them soya free too! While bread and baked goods seem to be having a turn around of use of soya flour, I don't understand why so many wheat free manufacturers are starting to use it. Maybe the more of us contacting manufacturers to explain that by adding soya they are excluding a lot of potential customers, they will start to take note. Anyway, rant over, will get on with posting recipes!