Received a sad newsletter from my local sugar-free store yesterday. It stated that sales have declined drastically over the last year. The decline was due to so many factors: Wal-Mart and Kroger selling some of the products, gas prices, re-election year, our country is at war, etc. As a result, ZamLows will no longer maintain a retail location. But, they will continue to be available by phone and by internet: www.eatsugarfree.com
The owner did state that they will be focusing on its sugar-free low carb line of specialty desserts-Pecan Pie, Chocolate Chip Pecan Pie, Chocolate Walnut Fudge Pie and Decadent Brownies.
Is this a growing trend? I must admit, my low-carb product grocery list has declined for many reasons, mainly because of the fact of sugar alcohol content, but did start to rely on their low-carb, low-calorie soft serve ice cream weekly.
Does this tell us, do not rely on low-carb processed foods? They may be here today and gone tomorrow. I do not want to have to order products on the internet or catalogs, so I have pretty much gotten used to real food.
Just wondering how many rely on low-carb products and what will you do if they disappear or become harder to obtain?
These are the only low-carb products I rely on: LeCarb Frozen Dessert, and I am thinking about buying the Carb Options Cheese Sauce (for vegetables) and the Carb Options ranch salad dressing.

Yes, I think that's a trend. I don't see how it could be profitable to try to run a retail store specializing in LC faire, when other stores have pretty much the same products.

The soft serve ice cream sounds like a good draw. But you'd still be needing to attract a lot of customers to stay in business.



I don't think the products are going to go away. They're here just in time for the diabetes epidemic that's lurking around the corner.

...but my perspective comes from someone who has never been to a LC store. I've always relied on grocery stores, health food stores, and pharmacies; and so far, there's nothing I feel I'm missing out on.

The closest LC store to me has closed as well erwife. I personally had stopped going there because of the focus on LC junk foods. Once I started looking toward whole foods there just wasn't a whole lot they could offer me. I did try to go there as often as I could for my staples like almond flour and the like but to be honest Almond flower is cheaper at my local grocery store. If everything was even and money wasn't a issue I would love to shop completely at the LC stores but money is definitely a issue and when I can get something for a dollar cheaper at Fred Meyer which by the way is also closer...

Gabrielle

Right eat real food

I can remember, several people I know used to tell me,"you should open a store you know so much about Low carb'n"
My answer to them was.............

No way!, give it time, the big box guys will kill the market for the small guys.

Guess I was right

Cheers Kathy

Yes, plus you will see less and less and less of the specail brands as the more mainstream brands (General mills, etc) pick up some lines. Why pay 8$ for a box of brand name LC ceral at a speciality store , when post has it for 3$ at kroger?

Its bad for the speciality store, but good for the consumer.

At WalMart yesterday all of their ZCarb bars, Atkins bars, Endulge, etc were marked down to closeout prices of 25c each.(Compred to normal prices of 96c each) I could see this kind of deal being offered in a specialty store, but what's going on with WalMart? Are these brands going out of business? Outdated? Overstocked? Well, whatever the reason, their loss was my gain (hopefully not weight gain!)

Well with the intorduction of Nestle, Snickers, and other more "main stream" low carb brands, that are stocked up by the registers.. the "sepical brands" that are found only in the pharmacy, and usaully cost more are dieing out. Most ppl see "SUGAR FREE NESTLE CRUNCH" for 86 cents, and its huge compared to the ZCarb bar at 96cents, and well buy the Nestle bar.

Goes back to what I siad in my previous post... For better or worse, thats how the market appears to work. You can argue that the ZCarb bar is better, but better does not sell junk food; price, location in the store, and taste (in that order) does.