My letter to Crust Pizza bar (yet to be sent)

Dear Manager,

I am very grateful to your stores for stocking gluten free pizza bases. Being able to order food to be delivered is completely fantastic and adds normalcy to a life that is bound by dietary restrictions.

Also, your pizza bases are very strongly flavoured of beans. I would suggest changing brands to one that does not use bean flour, perhaps a rice based version.

HOWEVER, I am very unhappy that after ordering approximately five gluten free pizzas from your Armadale store, all of which were barbeque chicken, I find that the barbeque sauce is NOT gluten free. It wasn’t until I called and asked that I was advised of this and am now being sent a nutritional information sheet.

I look on your website to check the allergen information and find that the ricotta pizza I ordered instead of the BBQ one contains gluten. The same list also lists the barbeque chicken pizza as NOT containing gluten despite staff members declaring that the sauce contains gluten. I called to cancel my order and get a refund put on my credit card (as I paid over the phone with it) only to be told the pizzas had already been made and there was uncertainty as to getting a refund at all.

I am very happy that I am only gluten intolerant and not coeliac. I have only had very minor health issues from this that I did not trace back to your product until this evening. A sufferer of full blown coeliac may suffer terribly from intestinal problems, mood swings or other immune responses because of this.

I am saddened by this and while I applaud your efforts I find them woefully inadequate and think you would be better to scrap the whole gluten free idea rather than poison your customers.