But of the two possible answers, “bakery owner resorts to dangerous fraud out of laziness, greed, and/or desperation” seems a lot more likely than “market owner crafts a fake instagram post to completely destroy the reputation of one of his suppliers.”
The first option has clear (short-term) benefits for the guilty party and requires very little effort (it only requires a lack of scruples, and a failure to notice that the donut with sprinkles that Dunkin threw into the “box of strawberry frosted” had signature Dunkin DD sprinkles).
The second option, on the other hand, doesn’t have a clear benefit to the market owner (increased publicity, I guess? Although media reports suggest that they’ve been trying to DOWNplay the attention), and would require quite a bit of careful plotting and work to execute.
The Savory Fig certainly seems like a real business, and they haven’t made any public statement in response to loads of media inquiries over the last couple weeks. One would think that a legit vegan baker being accused of fraud would make SOME effort to salvage her reputation.
Exactly this. Prices in store might be slightly less, but the prices of a dozen assorted donuts on UberEats for both my neighborhood Dunkin ($22.48) and my neighborhood vegan gluten-free bakery ($63.50) suggest there is PLENTY of profit to be made by passing off Dunkin as artisanal gluten-free vegan donuts. This is in NYC, which is more expensive than most of the US. But I can’t imagine that prices on the eastern end of Long Island (i.e., The Hamptons) are much different.
It’s 100% on faith, unless someone complains about false advertising, similar to this issue. It’s not like “organic,” which has a clear legal and industry definition supplied by the USDA in the US and similar bodies elsewhere, and can only be applied to a product by paying money to a government-approved certfication authority, and getting “certified” after inspection that the farm or food manufacturer follows the USDA or similar standards. “Vegetarian” and “Vegan” are even worse, as there are conflicting definitions for both and there is no government or other legally binding official definition.
“Gluten-free,” at least, has an FDA definition of no more than 20ppm gluten in the product, but there is no inspection or licensing or certification involved that I can find, just a declaration on the part of the manufacturer/seller and a legal path forward when cheaters are discovered.
That particular bakery (which bills itself specifically as being friendly to folks with severe allergies) charges $6.25 for an individual donut. A frickin’ cupcake is $8.25.
The OG artisanal donut shop in my neighborhood charges $4.25-5.45 per donut (depending on the variety), with no discount for buying a dozen. They have vegan and GF options within that price range, but no options that are both vegan and GF (and they specifically say that their GF options aren’t really intended for folks with celiac).
This is exactly why I am leery of the proliferation of items like the Impossible Burger at restaurants (both of the sit-down and quick-convenience variety). What’s stopping an underpaid food prep worker from swapping out the imitation meat for the real thing?
Do you think it’s possible the owner didn’t actually know what gluten intolerance really was? A bit like some people think “Vegetarians can eat fish, though yah?” So while they may have been using /buying in legit gluten free things for other stuff in the shop, they just went to Dunkin’ 'cos they didn’t know?
Otherwise, what kind of person sets up a health food shop (not a trivial thing to do) and advertises food for people who want to avoid potentially serious health problems - and then sells them exactly the opposite? It sort of defies all logic.
Still seems confusing; They only did the test on the one single donut; and suggested that they would all fail without evidence. Why not test another one.
It could indeed be reselling; or it could be someone swapped a single donut.
Though, the supplier shutting down their socials and not coming up with a good defense is a bit damning.
Test kits cost money, cross contamination happens and a supplier who keeps lying about what they’ve done doesn’t deserve any trust whatsoever much less a pointless spending spree to see if the other donuts might be gluten free and not contaminated…
Something similar happened about a decade and a half ago. Guy by the name of Paul Seelig was selling supposedly gluten free bread at farmers markets and for home delivery in NC for a couple years. Had a whole story concocted about how he found this gluten free Amish bakery after getting lost one day and it helped his Crohn’s disease. It was all a sham and he was just marking up regular bread. He was caught by a combination of being careless (his employees knew) and one person who was finally able to to trace their sickness to his bread and notified both other local celiacs and the department of agriculture.
It’s hard to trace getting sick from gluten exposure for actual celiacs because it’s not always an immediate reaction and so many things could do it as cross contamination can creep in in so many ways.
So he both went undetected for two years and also had a long line of people with stories of how he sickened them once they realized what they were eating and where the mystery symptoms were coming from.
The judge eventually sentenced him to 11 years.
Misrepresenting a food as allergen free is serious and I hope there’s also some actual repercussions in this instance as well.
