With Diabetes increasing among older people, to the point that many Doctors do not even blink when a patient suddenly turns up with it, and information about it along with good assistance suggestions for diet and all sorts of cooking recipes all over the net and in book stores, along with all sorts of new, easily taken medication and over the counter test kits, just what is the problem with stores when it comes to carrying diabetic foods, especially candy?
I’ve a family member in her 70s that turned into a mild diabetic, so, naturally, she cannot have candy or cookies, most cakes and pies. She controls her condition with diet and a pill medication. So, she tries to find tasty diabetic stuff at the stores and has found some cakes, pies, cookies, and candies, but all within a limited range.
The cakes and pies usually taste like cardboard, though the pies are simply low sugar fruits, baked with no additional sweetener. They come in mainly apple, blueberry, and cherry. Cookies tend to be baked like rocks or taste bad. Bag candy leans heavily into hard stuff, chocolate or peanut butter and is outrageously expensive for what little content you get.
Like 3 diabetic chocolate peanut butter cups, small, not like the big Reeses cups, but the Reeses bites, cost $1.98.
Candy stores will make delicious diabetic candies, not the hard, fruity type, but charge around $1 each for small pieces.
On the Internet, I found dozens of places which make delicious diabetic candies and was surprised at the variety, and even found plenty of cookies, and other sweet baked goods. Knowing a little about business, plus coming from a town of 95,000 people, where we have several chain grocery stores, including Walmart and Kmart, I figured that, according to medical estimates, we have at least 5 to 8,000 active diabetics in town. Maybe more. They buy a lot of diabetic foods and all crave good diabetic candy. (Well, many of them do anyhow.)
No grocery store, food store nor drug store will carry more than the usual, crappy stuff, leaning heavily into hard candies. All bakeries in the food stores turn out only the 4 or 5 types of diabetic baked goods. I went to store managers, talked to them about the availability of diabetic foods on the Internet, pointed out how their companies would get volume discounts if they were to order the stuff, informed them of the amount of diabetics locally wanting different sweet foods and got a whole lot of sympathy and promises.
I even pointed out to them how when one diabetic senior citizen locates some good diabetic food, that he or she tells the others and a few hundred of them head for that store and not only buy out the food, but spend more money in the store buying other goods, plus spread the word among more diabetics. That totals up into big bucks, especially for grocery stores hurt by Walmart.
I got a lot of promises to start carrying a better selection of diabetic candies and foods. In the mean time, the single, hand made candy store in town that was turning out a small selection of diabetic candies in creams, white and dark chocolate, fruit centers, bars, clusters and wafers was making a bunch of money by over charging for the stuff with a desperate cliental of diabetics desiring different, good tasting sweets.
Nothing happened. I followed up for months and got told that the stuff was coming, that the distributors were going to get it, that the home offices had been notified, that it was in the works, that big displays were planned and changes were going to be made.
A year later and the selection in the stores has not improved. A lot of people who knew about my efforts and had been requesting better selections from the stores also were disappointed.
So what is the problem? Don’t they want the money? Just punch in Diabetic Foods or Candy in your search section or on Google and just watch the hundreds of links pop up and visit the scores of sites that make and sell diabetic foods in great volume!
Walmart, Kmart, Winn Dixie, Publix, Walgreens, Target and other major stores still carry the same, limited selections from the same providers and those with bakeries still make or order in the same limited selections of baked goods.
Why? Eight thousand diabetics locally would be spending around $80,000 weekly on good diabetic sweet foods and that adds up to a big bunch of cash.
Are they stupid or just do not care?
