Gluten Free Food and Allergy Show

This weekend a friend and I headed off to the Gluten free food and allergy show at the north shore events centre in Auckland. It's a yearly event and everything there is gluten free! They have these handy little colour coded labels on the stuff that has eggs, dairy and nuts in, so it's super easy to figure out what you can safely try.
A pretty big chunk of the stalls were selling food that is made here in NZ and is organic and/or vegan or vegetarian so there's something there for everyone even if you can eat gluten and other allergens.



Some highlights for me definitely were:

Little Island Ice Cream

I buy this ice-cream whenever I can afford it, It's a touch pricey at about $8 per 475ml container but its totally worth it. I found other brands of dairy free ice-cream had a distinctive soy flavour that was difficult to overcome and a couple brands even had a weird grainy texture from the soy flour. This brand is awesome, the coconut cream has a natural smooth creamy texture and tastes pretty close to real ice-cream - my dairy eating friends are always willing to have a second helping.

They have 4 flavours but at that price tag I had only been brave enough to try the vanilla and chocolate for fear that I wouldn't like the banana bean and mango flavours.
I had a chance to try these at their both at the show and they are divine.
The mango one tastes like a holiday, sorta like a pina colada with a subtle coconut flavour and super creamy texture but with mango instead of pineapple as the main flavour.
With the banana one I wasn't really sure that I wanted to try it, I'm not a huge fan of fake banana flavouring and I was skeptical as to how it would go with the coconut. This one is made with real banana puree and vanilla bean and it tastes awesome! The banana and coconut goes together really well without being overwhelmingly one or the other.


Bakeworks

Another brand I already buy. Unfortunately my supermarket doesn't stock their full range. They do Sliced breads, (my favourite is the farmhouse loaf, its also, conveniently, the cheapest) a super soft pull-apart loaf, baguettes, burger buns, regular and panko breadcrumbs etc etc etc They were there launching a new product, slider sized buns. there's a little less bread to them so they are great for lunches.
I love these breads because they're pretty much as close to 'real' bread as you're gonna get, it's are soft and when you toast it, it gets crunchy on the outside and soft and chewy on the inside. There's also no boiled rice or soapy aftertaste.

Angel Foods

This one I had never tried before, there's a pretty high price outlay and as with the Little Island Ice-cream I was not sure I would like their products so never tried them. They were there mostly promoting their vegan alternatives for mozzarella, parmesan and cheese sauce. The mozzarella MELTS!!! The main reason I was concerned about trying these cheeses is because I had tried a couple of vegan cheeses before and they don't have even the littlest bit of a cheesy texture or flavour and became this weird sour rubbery lump when heated. This is the exact opposite, good enough that hell's pizza uses these guys for their vegan pizzas. These guys were impressive enough that I actually bought a block of the mozzarella and a container of parmesan.

Waitoa Chicken

I had seen these guys at the supermarket a couple of times but ignored them on the assumption that their products are not gluten free, they were at the show this weekend launching 2 new products, plain and lemon pepper crumbed chicken tenderloins. they are super tasty and crunchy, awesome for a quick and easy dinner. Their products will be in the frozen section of supermarkets pretty soon, I didn't pick any up on the day because I had a longish drive home and didn't want them to defrost, I'll certainly be picking them up in the groceries once I can.

Other great products of note:

Orgran banana bread mix - super moist and flavourful
Alpro Custard, Cream and desserts - Creamy and smooth, super flavourful and no overpowering soy flavour
Free From Gluten double chocolate biscuits - pretty good sub for timtams
Partner Foods Fav-Va Nuts - Crunchy and yummy in a variety of dairy and gluten free flavours


There were also (of course) a few stalls with food that was average at best, Brands I will be avoiding in future and am happy I didn't have to pay to try:

Venerdi Breads - I judge a GF bread company by their white bread, theirs has a dry texture and a very unusual mouthfeel, sort of like a bad smoothie after being chewed.

Gerry's Wraps - The texture was fine but they had a boiled rice flavour with a slightly soapy aftertaste

Kea Cookies - Their ginger nuts are AWESOME but I really would not recommend the choc. chip or chocolate varieties, very bland flavours and pretty dry biscuits - they might be good dunkers though


I would highly recommend going to the Gluten free food and allergy show next time its in your area, the next one is in Christchurch on the 31st Oct and 1st Nov this year. It was really awesome to try things I wouldn't have even considered. The people are really friendly and helpful and I will definitely go back next year.

***NOT A SPONSORED POST***
I am sharing my honest opinion about products I have genuinely tried and would/would not recommend.