There’s a happy update to the story about Surrey mom Jenna Roman and her desperate hunt for a discontinued brand of waffles for her son, who has autism.
Nature’s Path organic maple cinnamon waffles are the only solid food her nine-year-old Jerico Roman of Surrey will chew and swallow. He has extreme oral aversion, a highly sensitive gag reflex, and other complex eating challenges.
Roman makes him smoothies twice a day packed with carrots, avocados, berries, formula, and vitamins but he won’t eat any other solid food.
On Saturday, Nature’s Path said it had adapted the recipe for home use and delivered it to the family, along with some ingredients.
Samantha Falk, a spokesperson for Nature’s Path, said they first heard about Jerico’s story last month and really wanted to help.
“Unfortunately, we had discontinued the waffles a few months before, so stores were running out.”
They found eight remaining cases in their freezer in Illinois and had those shipped to the family.
“But the situation got us thinking, what would happen when Jenna and Jerico ran out of these waffles? These were the last ones ever made,” she said.
So the research and development team took it upon themselves to adapt the recipe for home use, so Roman could make them herself.
Falk said this is trickier than it sounds because they use a lot of commercial ingredients to make it shelf stable that are not easily found in grocery stores. It took the team nearly a month to figure it out.
“But they were determined to do it, they were on a mission,” she said, adding they tested and tweaked until they got the recipe just right.
Falk said Roman will have to use a home waffle iron to recreate the shape and texture, and that might take a few tries.
“We really hope Jenna and Jerico now have a recipe they can enjoy forever.”
Last month, Roman started a campaign to try and find other people who had the one product. She has filled a freezer with the waffles and will try to wean Jericho off of them and onto other foods.
She told media that not everyone understands the severity of Jerico’s challenge and thinks that eventually he will just accept another food, but it doesn’t work like that.
Roman is asking people to look for these waffles in grocery-store freezers, and started a fundraiser to cover the costs should anyone find them.
The ingredients of the maple cinnamon waffles, according to Nature Path’s website, are water, whole wheat flour, cane sugar, soy oil, soy lecithin, baking powder, wheat bran, maple syrup, oat bran, natural maple flavour, cinnamon and sea salt.
