I've posted this a few betas back, so apologies if It's beating a dead horse, but I'm just hoping to make it clear that this has not been fixed yet (at least for me)...

When I start a game, the item shop has an initial set of items for purchase (Salted Pork, Gnarled Club, Travelling Boots, and Staff).  These are quite useful for some early NPCs.  But as soon as I load a saved game, the items disappear - they are only available until I close the initial game.

Anything that research makes available remains - its only the initial items...