Free From Market

Oh, Free From Market! Where were you eight years ago? Certainly not sitting oh-​so-​accessibly in Orland Park, that’s for sure!
I suppose I should back up a bit: eight years ago, at the behest of my daughter’s developmental pediatrician, I plunged us into the (at the time) largely unknown world of gluten/​casein free diets. What an immense pain! At the time, there were zero gf/​cf options at our local grocery stores and definitely not something as convenient as Free From Market. Our year on the gf/​cf diet – and vegan for me – meant ordering most of our supplies and ingredients online. Complete and utter hassle.
Fast forward to the present: we are no longer following the gf/​cf diet – and I ended up more of a vegetarian than vegan – our dietary needs are more than met by a local, stellar produce market (mad love to The Produce Depot! :) and a few smaller grocery stores. Easy peasy, right? Well… yes and no.
During that time, I also picked up a teaching gig working with teenagers with severe autism. Part of our weekly lessons? Cooking class: teaching basic kitchen skills, how to follow a recipe (using icons and a PECS system), and some rudimentary cleaning were all woven into a ninety minute block within our weekly activities. One small problem? Two of my students follow a gf/​cf diet and one also follows a sugar free diet. Yikes! We have a very limited quarterly cooking budget and about one hour/​week to shop for our ingredients. Where does one even begin?
Free From Market
Free From is not a large store, as previous reviewers have mentioned, but it is chock full of gluten and casein free goodness. Everything my students could need for cooking class within a few aisles span. In our world that is a wondrous, glorious thing. The hours are limited (but not undoable) and the staff is helpful and polite.
One caveat: check the expiration dates on everything you buy. A couple times we snagged a product which was already past its «best by» date. Bummer. Overall, though, Free From Market is a must have for those of us that rock the gf/​cf diet. Even if you aren’t shunning the gluten, you should check it out. The quinoa and the variety of flour alone are worth it. :)

I dig it. Wifey and I come here for some GF stuff as well as a ton of Daiya cheese. The employees are okay, but some of the prices are a bit high (more like Whole Foods and less like Trader Joes). Like having a spot like this in OP tho, especially for the Daiya. As mentioned in a prior review, the hours are limited but parking is good. It’s not a terribly big store, but it has enough to offer and is worth the checking out if you’re in the area.

Free From has a big variety of gluten free, allergy free foods. Their website has a query tool so you can query for a variety of allergens, such as gluten, dairy, etc. The frozen/​fresh section has a large variety of foods which is nice. In addition to foods, Free From carries allergy free cleaners and toiletries, including Burt’s Bees.
The hours fairly limited and there is a parking lot.