Food Allergy Buzz Talks to Allergies and Me Owner, Jamie Stern

Jamie Stern, Owner of Allergiesandme.com, graciously answered our questions about her new online specialty food store. Thank you, Jamie, for your time and for answering our questions!

Please tell us more about yourself and your connection to food allergies, food intolerances and/or celiac disease.

We started this company after learning more about the difficulties of raising a child with multiple food allergies. Our best friends have a beautiful four-year-old boy, Jack, who is allergic to Dairy, Eggs, Peanuts and Tree Nuts.  Seeing first-hand what they were dealing with, from first diagnosis to subsequent life-threatening reactions, we made a decision to see how we could help. After researching the online resources available, my vision was formed. Allergiesandme.com was created to help families find a stress-free shopping opportunity to find essential and great tasting products specific to their needs. The website is also dedicated to providing resources for education, support networks and new recipes to try. We offer a platform for new cookbook authors and bloggers to promote their business, which in turn, helps our customers.

Allergiesandme.com is involved in giving back to those fantastic non-profit organizations that help in the daily struggles. We have pledged to donate a significant portion our company profits to FAAN, Kids with Food Allergies and Celiac Sprue Association. Additionally, we are giving our personal time and efforts to support them as well.  I am the co-chair of our first annual FAAN Walk for Food Allergy: Moving Toward a Cure here in Tampa, Florida. I am a member of several local and national Food Allergy and Celiac Support groups and will be assisting them in their own individual fundraising efforts.

What inspired you to open Allergies and Me and when did you open for business?

Of course, Jack was our inspiration. We have given him the important position of” Corporate Mascot”. He has happily accepted this responsibility!

Allergiesandme.com launched our online store the beginning of August and we have been encouraged by all the positive feedback received from our customers. They have found the website easy to navigate and have voiced their appreciation of the large variety of products offered.

What is your principle line of work? Have you always been an entrepreneur?

I think I was always an entrepreneur at heart, but applied that spirit to my life in the corporate world. I have an extensive marketing background within the Commercial Insurance industry. This  gave me a wonderful opportunity to learn the important aspects of running a customer focused business.

Who handles the day-to-day business? Who can customers expect to when they phone?
I am the principal owner and head of operations of Allergiesandme.com. I believe Customer Satisfaction is the most important service we can provide to our customers and because of this, would be closely involved in all customer contacts.

What are the distinguishing features of Allergies and Me?

I would invite your readers to see for themselves. To me, it is the “uncluttered and stress-free” feel of the website, from the home page to the individual product descriptions. We have made this a priority because we know that our customers lead a stressful life, dealing with these dietary issues. Allergiesandme.com is dedicated to giving them the ability to slow down the pace and really feel that they can read product and ingredient lists without the distractions. We offer a “multiple allergy” search option to search for several allergen concerns by category. The site also provides direct contact information for all our manufacturers so if there are any specific product or production questions, our customers can go directly to the source for information.

Finally, which items are your biggest sellers? Do you have any specials coming up that you'd like to tell Food Allergy Buzz readers about?

 I couldn’t narrow our best sellers down to just a few at this point, our customers have indicated their approval for many of our product lines. We are adding more items weekly and I encourage your readers to check the online store frequently for new additions. We offer products for the top food allergens, Gluten and Wheat free products and also address the needs of many other dietary needs, such as Vegan, Vegetarian, Kosher, Organic, etc.

I am offering your readers a personal invitation to check out our online store with a wonderful discount offer. We are giving a discount of 10% off product orders between now and November 1st.  They just need to input the following code in the check out process: DCBUZZ.

Thanks for this opportunity to introduce my company to your readers. I look forward to hearing from them. We welcome all suggestions, comments and requests to make our store even better…and focused on the needs of our customers.

Jamie Stern
Owner, Allergiesandme.com