Gluten Free Food Guide: Ryan’s Grocery Opens in Bukit Timah

On the heels of our ultra-popular gluten free food guide to Singapore, Ryan’s Grocery has just opened with a stock that’s 99% gluten-free!

One of Sassy Mama’s most popular all-time posts – more than two years after its initial publication – is still our Gluten-Free Guide to Singapore. There’s a massive appetite for GF products here, and clearly many mamas are struggling to find a one-stop shop to meet the needs of those with food intolerances and sensitivities. It’s hard enough finding quality products, but it’s an extra pain having to skip all over town picking up items one at a time.

Parents Wendy and Sebastian Chia faced just such a predicament. Their 8-year-old son, Ryan, has intolerances to dairy, gluten, nuts, soy, eggs and yeast. Frustrated by the limited selection of healthy, nutritious options in Singapore, they found themselves traveling frequently to Western Australia, going so far as to import their own meat on a wholesale basis just so they could be sure of its provenance! After frequent visits to local farmers’ markets, they began developing close relationships with a number of small-batch specialist producers. The end result: Ryan’s Grocery, whose stock is 99% gluten-free (just about the only items that aren’t are the bottled herbs and spices).

This cute little shop in Binjai Park (just off Dunearn Road) carries all sorts of GF baking products (pancakes, biscuits, and cornbread, holla!) and kid-pleasing snacks, including hard-to-find Australian, British and American brands like Bodhi’s Bakehouse, Against the Grain, and 1-2-3 Gluten Free. The grocery also offers a wide variety of organic and free-range meats, with a butcher right on-site!

The 100% grass fed beef is sourced exclusively from Blackwood Valley Beef in Western Australia, and is Australian Certified Organic. Whereas most beef is shipped in frozen and in pieces, Ryan’s imports the whole carcass and then processes specific cuts for retail. This not only ensures an extra level of freshness, but also means you can special order hard-to-find premium cuts like Ribeye and Brisket.

The shop also offers antibiotic free, free-range chickens along with free-range pork, and even makes gluten-free sausages on site with all-natural casings. We had a chance to sample a few of the sausages and they were indeed amazing – Cranberry and chestnut pork sausage, anyone? This one went particularly well with the suggested jalapeno onion jam from gluten-free condiments company Latasha’s Kitchen…delish! 

When we said Ryan’s was a one-stop shop, we meant it. They’ve got a nice selection of organic fruits and veggies on offer, with plans to increasingly supply more seasonal produce from both Singapore and Australia. They’ve also got you covered if you want to get a little bit fancy, mama, with provisions like caviar, Iberico ham, and a range of yummy truffle oils, spreads and sauces from Great Southern Truffles.

None of this comes cheaply, mamas, but we have a feeling you already knew that. The meat was about on par with other premium butchers in Singapore. Items from the awesome Bob’s Red Mill product line were around $1.00 more than what we’ve seen at Marketplace, but if you’re seeking out Gluten Free products anyway, that might be worth it in convenience.

And Ryan’s also delivers! Spend over $100 and you won’t even have to make your way out to Binjai Park! See their online delivery site for all the details; right now in the early days it looks like just meats are listed online, but we believe you can call to add other items to your order.

Here’s hoping Ryan’s Grocery makes gluten-free families’ lives just a little bit easier!

Ryan’s Grocery, 29 Binjai Park, Singapore, 589831, (+65) 6463 3933, www.facebook.com/RyansGrocery