About Us

Allergy Grocer began as Miss Roben’s, in 1992 under my husband Roy’s ownership.  At the time Miss Roben’s sold only a handful of different wheat- & gluten-free mixes, & about 20 other gluten-free products or ingredients.   Roy worked another job all day, filling orders in the evenings and weekends.   Almost a year after Roy & I (Jay) were married, I left my fulltime job & hung out at Miss Roben’s while I searched for a better position.  I never left. 

As I listened to customers I kept hearing the same frustrations (there wasn’t much available for those with more than one food restrictions, like gluten AND dairy, or peanut AND soy; or corn allergies).   We took the problem on as a challenge & a promise to help.  We removed ALL the major food allergens (plus Gluten) from our plant & starting cleaning our equipment between every ingredient change (to be sensitive to those with corn, rice, & other foods still used in some of our mixes).    We modified or created new mixes that would tolerate multiple substitutes.  And we searched for tasty ready-to-eat products that would meet the specific food needs, often as excited as our customers when we located good products.  Recently we changed our name to Allergy Grocer to demonstrate our outward focus to other food allergies and intolerances.  Roy began to seek a new career a few years ago and I began to run all of the business, as CEO & general manager. 

We have a predominantly (and may I say excellent) female staff, even in production that truly cares about and believes in what they do.  As moms, we are finicky to details and picky-we don’t carry just any product because it is available on the market, we sample them & choose them for their appeal.  We want people to know you don’t have to sacrifice great taste, quality, or selection just because you need to avoid certain foods.  With some of us being parents of children who have/had food allergies, we know firsthand how difficult it can be to food shop, & understand firsthand about the day-to-day issues of dealing with food allergies/intolerances.  To help make shopping less exhaustive, we research every product we sell down to the original ingredient source & manufacturer, with special attention to the manufacturing’s cleaning & allergen practices, & check package labels of products each time they arrive in our plant.   Even the packaging materials we use are selected to avoid allergens like wheat, corn, or soy (from ink dyes).  

We enjoy trying to make your life easier.  It’s the best part of our workday.  Dealing with a food allergy or intolerance can feel isolating.  It may seem like the options are limited when in fact they often are not.  And allergy-free baking can be intimidating, especially in the beginning.  Many times a simple, small change can make a tremendous difference in the finished product.  However challenging the diet is, we are here to help walk you through it, make product substitution suggestions, or re-network you, all for free.  And make our day!