We've had a busy start to the year, adding a variety of new lines to our Free From range – and we've got a great selection of new products to choose from this Easter.
It's a time of year that's all about families getting together, and food's often at the heart of that, so it's important to me as many people as possible get to enjoy the things they love.
We're always working to make sure we're offering the best choice for our Free From customers with good value food which doesn't compromise on taste. This year we've brought back our Extra Special Belgian Dark Choc Egg with Vanilla Flavoured Truffles, our White Choc Egg with White Choc Buttons, the Milk Choc Egg with Choc Orange Discs and the Choc Easter Bunny Hollow. They were all really popular last year and I think it's fantastic to be able to offer a range of choice both for adults and children.
We sent some samples for bloggers to try and were delighted to see how much they liked them:
Fun lines are always a winner so we've added a cute Easter Chick Choc Lollipop that's sure to go down a treat with the little ones. It's a gluten and milk free alternative to milk chocolate that's really delicious – and it's Vegan Society approved!
If you're following a vegan diet there are five of our Free From lines to choose from that have been approved by the Vegan Society: Extra Special Belgian Dark Choc Egg, Milk Choc Egg with Choc Orange Discs, Choc Easter Bunny Hollow, the Chick Choc Lolly and this White Choc Egg with choc buttons:
We wanted to add more choice for adults this year, so we've launched an Extra Special Free From Easter Egg Selection. It's a trio selection pack of milk, egg, gluten and wheat free chocolate-flavour eggs – a milk chocolate flavour egg with freeze-dried raspberries, a white chocolate flavour egg with vanilla and a deliciously dark chocolate egg with cocoa nibs. My brother is Coeliac and loves white chocolate so as a treat for Easter I’ll be giving him this as it makes the perfect gift.
My personal favourite in our Free From Easter range has to be our Extra Special Free From Belgian Dark Chocolate Easter Egg. Its's £5, comes with vanilla-flavoured truffles, and won best dairy-free chocolate Easter egg in the BBC Good Food Taste Tests. Judges said: "We’ve been impressed by Asda’s free-from range recently, and this beautiful egg is no exception. Like lots of vegan chocolate, it's rich in flavour, which is perfectly balanced by the sweet truffles. The chocolate is well-tempered and has depth of flavour. 'Extra special' in name and nature."
It’s not just dairy free, it’s also wheat and gluten free – and approved by the Vegan Society. The dark chocolate egg has a velvety texture coupled with crunchy cocoa nibs and rich dark chocolate vanilla truffles. Delicious!
We recently received a silver award for Free From Retailer of the Year and won across multiple categories for our range at the Free From Food Awards 2019. We won five gold, seven silver and seven bronze awards. It’s great to be involved in developing the range, and the accolades we received from the Free From awards this year are fantastic news for Asda and our Free From customers. It's very much a team effort as we develop across categories using our knowledge and expertise from our product managers and buyers to develop the best product ranges possible.
We're currently working on finalising this year's Free From Christmas range – it's going to be even bigger and better this year. Soon it will be time to develop all the new Easter concepts for next year – we'll be looking at what’s trending, what’s new to the market and what our Free From customers are looking for. We saw lots of inspiration on a trip to London last month, where we visited lots of Free From bakeries, delis and restaurants while we attended the Free From awards. It’s really important to make the range as inclusive as possible so we'll be making sure we tick as many boxes as possible for our Free From customers.
