Post Punk Kitchen Forum

Did they just disappear off the planet? A few years ago I used to eat them maniacally. I haven't seen them on a shelf in an age. Did they get discontinued?? Any suitable alternative (something corny/cheesy)?

They're still around as far as I know. I haven't bought them in a while because I eat the whole bag when I do, but last I saw, they were still there. The bag did get a makeover not too long ago, maybe that's it?

Hmm, maybe that is it...but I swear I couldn't find them. What kind of a store did you find them in, in NY? I'm in San Francisco and I checked Whole Foods, Trader Joe's and Rainbow.

We have them at our Whole Foods in IL. I've never seen them at my TJs or big grocery chains, though.

I wish they didn't share machinery and equipment with the unvegan versions, I called the company and the lady on the phone said she didn't think they cared at all about mixing the production lines and that surely they contained dairy because of how the production ran... not to rain on anyone's parade but that was unfortunate, I prefer when the people on the phones tell me that all is pretty clean. That was years ago though.

yeah, I still see them at Whole Foods but never at any grocery stores even though every single other store has Veggie Booty. What's up with that, you'd think Tings would be more "mainstream" than Veggie Booty.

I haven't seen them around here. I used to I think. I was looking for them the other day. I think they are better than Pirate's Booty.

I know!

I bet Kraft and Nabisco et al. made shady deals forbidding supermarkets from selling anything that directly competes with their products - e.g. Cheetos v. Tings - whereas what does Big Food have that is a competitor of Veggie Booty??

haha I'm just making crazy talk.

I find them in regular big chain grocery stores!

this theory sounds entirely plausible to me.

They went missing from Kansas City sometime last year and it's broken my heart. My mom-in-law brought me some bags over the summer, and they were eaten too quickly. Maybe the midwest is off their distro list? My plan is to hopefully stock up when we head back east over Christmas.

This sounds sketchy to me. My old roommate is a food scientist and she has worked in production lines and a great deal of her job was making sure standards were met after production runs. According to her there are industry wide standard operating procedures for this stuff, even if the items are not much different. They have to make a reasonable effort to be sure the ingredient labels are accurate. (she told me this during an anecdote involving chicken feathers--yuck!)

But anyway, I seriously doubt that people on the phones are privvy to much information about the production lines other than most likely being told that allergens can be found because they don't do a total sterilization in between, which is standard CYA and labels always say traces may remain.

I can still find Tings here both in Giant and Wegmans.

Sounds like a letter to Tings HQ is in order.

We have Tings at the co-op and at the bigger chain grocery stores in the health food section.

I too have inspector friends and from what I hear, food production lines are spotless. Either way, I'm still eating tings by the bagful as they are as vegan as possible (like me). I get them at Wegmans and the coop. Not sure if theyre at the other chain supermarkets since I cant cheat on Wegmans.

I can't find Tings here, but when I used to live in Colorado, I could find them at the big chain stores (Safeway and King Soopers) and also at WF.

I love tings! I can find them at my local Giant Eagle usually but strangely enough the co-op doesn't carry them. I can definitely go through a bag in a single sitting.

They still sell them here in Tucson- and oddly enough the only place is the import store.

They disappeared from my (Indianapolis, IN) WF about a year ago, but my local health food store carries them. I think you can still order them on amazon though.

I worked in grocery retail and that is crazy talk. No retailer would make that kind of deal with a supplier. The food companies make deals to get their products more exposure in retail locations, they don't have the power in the relationship. A company isn't going to discontinue a product at a vendor's request.

I usually get them at WF. I have noticed that they disappear every now and then. I'll go in and they won't have them for 2-3 weeks and then they reappear.

I will double check Rainbow, the last time I wanted to buy them they had them there. After they changed the packaging and the formula I didn't really care for them as much.

I see them at Market Basket all the time, which is weird because Market Basket kind of sucks.

they're still around here as well - i find them at my local natural foods store, or i buy bags of them in bulk on amazon.com.