Consumers have growing hunger for more gluten-free products
The Girl Scouts recently introduced a gluten-free chocolate chip shortbread cookie to their annually anticipated line of sweet treats.
Vodka companies vie over which one of them was the “first” to introduce a gluten-free version of their products.
And Trader Joe’s recently joked in an advertising flier promoting gluten- free foods that it was selling “Gluten Free Greeting Cards 99 Cents Each! Every Day!” — even though it then went on to say the cards were not edible.
Makers of products that have always been gluten- free, including popcorn, potato chips, nuts and rice crackers, are busy hawking that quality in ads and on their packaging.
And consumers are responding with gusto. The portion of households reporting purchases of gluten-free food products to Nielsen hit 11 percent last year, rising from 5 percent in 2010.
In dollars and cents, sales of gluten-free products were expected to total $10.5 billion last year, according to Mintel, a market research company, which estimates the category will produce more than $ 15 billion in annual sales in 2016.
“I see this as part of the current American concern with digestive health, which is also responsible for the yogurt boom,” said Harry Balzer, vice president at the market research company NPD Group, where he has followed the food industry for some 30 years. “About 30 percent of the public says it would like to cut back on the amount of gluten it’s eating, and if you find 30 percent of the public doing anything, you’ll find a lot of marketers right there, too.”
Never mind that a Mayo Clinic survey in 2012 concluded that only 1.8 million Americans have celiac disease, an autoimmune disorder that causes the body to attack the small intestine when gluten is ingested and can lead to other debilitating medical problems if not diagnosed.
An additional 18 million people, or about 6 percent of the population, is believed to have gluten sensitivity, a less severe problem with the protein in wheat, barley and rye.