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The 5 Fifty 5 Shop

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Archival photograph of a shopkeeper showing low-protein food products to a woman and child in a store

Original caption: Debra Snow and her mother make a purchase from the helpful Auxillary member on duty in the shop. The new outlet will save them extra shopping trips.

Archival photograph of a man standing outside “The 5 Fifty 5 Shop,” a small retail store in a shopping mall.

Dr. Richard Hamilton, Medical Consultant for the service, believes the shop location will be handy for parents bringing their children to Hospital clinics.

While gluten-free, low-sodium and dairy-free products are commonplace today, this was certainly not the case 50 years ago.

“Special diet foods are often very expensive and difficult, if not impossible, to obtain,” reported a Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) newsletter at the time.

This made feeding children with special dietary needs extraordinarily complicated.

Therefore, in 1976, to address the issue, Richard Hamilton (MD ’58), then head of gastroenterology at SickKids and an associate paediatrics professor at the University of Toronto Faculty of Medicine (now the Temerty Faculty of Medicine) founded a food dispensary at the downtown hospital, where parents could purchase foods such as special infant formula and gluten-free bread.

Initially launched as a pilot project in the hospital’s 5Fifty5 Shop, the dispensary later relocated off-site, before moving back to the hospital, where it remains today.