Thursday, August 8, 2013

Pillsbury and Celiacs Welcome Three New Gluten-Free Products to Market

Written by Leslie Morris of Triumph Dining

Thank you Pillsbury! Your friends at Triumph Dining were thrilled to read your recent press release on your new offerings: pie and pastry crust, chocolate chip cookie dough, and thin crust pizza dough.

General Mills, who owns Pillsbury, has long been a friend of the gluten-free community. Its associated companies now offer more than 300 gluten-free products. Chex Cereal was its first mainstream product followed by Betty Crocker baking mixes. Today there are seven varieties of gluten-free Chex cereal.

The Pillsbury team developed at least a dozen different formulas to test. Wheat flour was eliminated. The cookie dough contains rice flour. The pie crusts have rice and sorghum flour. The thin pizza crust contains tapioca starch, rice, millet and sorghum flour.

In the summer of 2012, about 20 consumers handled the dough, tasted and critiqued it. At that time the company also created a 35-member Gluten-Free Advisory Board. Said Jill Haspert, associate marketing manager at Pillsbury, “It was eye opening to listen to gluten-free consumers, who told us they couldn’t find products their kids would eat. We found that moms with gluten-free kids were cooking two meals at ho me. One consumer even told us that a gluten-free cookie has to pass the ‘dunk-able’ test, meaning it wouldn’t crumble when her kids dunked it in milk.”

We’ll be looking for these new products in our local grocery store pronto.

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