diff --git a/src/recommendationservice/recommendation_server.py b/src/recommendationservice/recommendation_server.py
index 1ea14f5..b75c3a0 100644
--- a/src/recommendationservice/recommendation_server.py
+++ b/src/recommendationservice/recommendation_server.py
@@ -12,13 +12,17 @@ class RecommendationService(demo_pb2_grpc.RecommendationServiceServicer):
 
         # fetch list of products from product catalog stub
         cat_response = stub.ListProducts(demo_pb2.Empty())
-        num_prodcuts = len(cat_response.products)
-        num_return = min(max_responses, num_prodcuts)
+
+        product_ids = [x.id for x in cat_response.products]
+        filtered_products = list(set(product_ids)-set(request.product_ids))
+
+        num_products = len(filtered_products)
+        num_return = min(max_responses, num_products)
 
         # sample list of indicies to return
-        indices = random.sample(range(num_prodcuts), num_return)
+        indices = random.sample(range(num_products), num_return)
         # fetch product ids from indices
-        prod_list = [cat_response.products[i].id for i in indices]
+        prod_list = [filtered_products[i] for i in indices]
         print("handling request: {}".format(prod_list))
 
         # build and return response