Free & Simple Foods, a small-batch Michigan brand that makes crackers and granola for people with food allergies, is now on the shelf at the Meijer Grocery that opened this month on Seven Mile Road.

The company builds its products around two things you won't find in a standard cracker aisle: tigernuts and cassava flour. Tigernuts, despite the name, are a tuber rather than a nut — which is the point. Founder Renee Sorgi writes on the company's website that she uses them specifically because they're allergy-safe.

The company says its products are made without all nine major food allergens: milk, eggs, fish, shellfish, tree nuts, peanuts, wheat, soy and sesame. Packaging carries a "made in a dedicated allergy-friendly facility" line, along with a row of allergen-free icons. Free & Simple also describes its snacks as grain-free and free of seed oils; the bags themselves are labeled gluten free.

Why it exists

On the company's About page, Sorgi writes that she started Free & Simple after three years of learning to manage her own autoimmune issues, frustrated by how little she could actually buy at a grocery store. She writes that she then realized families with food-allergic kids were working from the same short list.

In a note to Livonia Thrive, Sorgi said the business began in her home kitchen during the pandemic and has since grown into stores across Michigan. The company describes itself as 100% woman-owned.

What's in the lineup

The cracker line runs four flavors — sea salt, garlic, rosemary and chive — in six-ounce bags. The granola comes in chocolate chip and cinnamon in eight-ounce bags. Sorgi identified the chocolate chip granola and the sea salt crackers as the company's two best sellers.

Free & Simple says its chocolate chip granola won a Good Housekeeping Best Snack Award in 2023.

Sold direct through the company's website, the crackers list at $9 a bag and the granola at $11. Retail pricing at Meijer is set by the store.

Which Meijer, though?

Worth being specific, because Livonia now has two. Free & Simple is stocked at the new one, not the longtime supercenter on Middlebelt Road.

The Seven Mile store is a 75,000-square-foot location in Meijer's smaller "Meijer Grocery" format. It opened Aug. 19 at 33500 W. Seven Mile Road at Farmington Road, on the 16.5-acre former Kmart property that had been vacant since the retailer closed in 2017.

Meijer says the grocery format runs roughly half the size of a supercenter and is built around fresh food and everyday essentials. The Livonia-Westland Chamber of Commerce described the store as a traditional grocery and pharmacy without a garden center, sporting goods or clothing. It is Meijer's fourth grocery-format store in Michigan, following a Rochester Hills opening in May.

If you've been to the new store, we want to hear how it's going — what works, what you miss from the bigger store, and how the Seven Mile traffic is holding up. Leave a comment or send us a note.

Sourcing: Product details, founding story and allergen claims come from Free & Simple Foods' website and from written information provided to Livonia Thrive by founder Renee Sorgi, who also confirmed the Seven Mile store as the retail location. Allergen and award claims are the company's own and have not been independently verified by Livonia Thrive. Details on the Seven Mile store come from Meijer's June 29, 2026 announcement, reporting by The Detroit News and DBusiness, and the Livonia-Westland Chamber of Commerce newsletter. Product photography courtesy of Free & Simple Foods.