Food giants flocking to gluten-free bandwagon
Soaring sales have caught eye of CEOs
Leading the latest surge in health-conscious food consumption, gluten-free dieting has taken the world by storm.
Migrating from the shelves of obscure specialty health food boutiques, gluten-free food items now grace the feature displays at mainstream grocery stores.
Seemingly more than just a trend, gluten-free has evolved into a veritable cult whose proponents often aggressively advocate its benefits. There is even a gluten-free dating website, presumably where anti-gluten crusaders conspire to rid the world of this condemned substance once and for all.
Inevitably, food producers, both small and large, have jumped at this latest dieting trend as an opportunity to cash out.
General Mills, for example, is releasing gluten-free versions of its five most popular Cheerios products this July.
This due in part to the fact that trace amounts of gluten sometimes find their way into otherwise non-glutinous foods, often during the production process in which a variety of food items are produced and packages under the same roof.
However, in addition to conventional gluten-free labelling standards, food producers worldwide are now leveraging consumers’ mounting aversion to gluten by slapping gluten-free labels on items whose gluten content is indisputably zero.
Gluten-free eggs, meat, poultry and vegetables all likely populate the shelves of your local grocery store.
While such labelling practices may seem redundant, market data indicates that free-from labelling on food packaging is resonating with a growing number of consumers, incentivizing producers to add labels like gluten-free to any product that qualifies under current labelling regulations.
A report published by Packaged Facts last year indicated that the sales of gluten-free food in the U.S. grew 34 per cent annually in the five years leading up to 2014, when they reached $973 million US, with growth expected to slow to 19.2 per cent annually through 2019, the total sales will reach a whopping $2.34 billion in 2019 — a 140 per cent increase from 2014.
In contrast, global sales of packaged food are expected to increase at a mere three per cent annual growth rate over the same time fame, according to Steve Rice, managing director of RTS Resources.
What’s more, consumers typically pay a premium for gluten-free items.
A walk through my neighbourhood Whole Foods made the cost differential between regular and gluten-free goods abundantly clear — a loaf of regular white bread cost $2.99, while its glutenfree counterpart was priced at $5.49, a staggering 84 per cent price increase. Comparisons between regular and gluten-free granola bars, frozen pizza and cosmetics all revealed similar price markups.
Moreover, gluten is just the latest dietary component to be demonized by society. Trans fats, carbohydrates and cholesterol have all found themselves in the crosshairs at various points throughout the last two decades.
While these fads have since faded from the minds of fickle consumers, we seem to have embraced gluten-free as the new solution to our dieting woes. Public personalities have only added credence to the gluten-free hype, attracting endorsements from professional athletes like NFL quarterback Drew Brees, pop icons Lady Gaga and Miley Cyrus, and actress Gwyneth Paltrow, to name but a few.
Ultimately, however, it is the everyday consumer who continues to drive this trend.
Specifically, gluten-free consumers can be broken down into three categories: those who have been diagnosed with celiac disease, those who, largely through self-diagnosis, have identified gluten as a source of dietary sensitivity, and those who believe that going gluten-free is an accepted weight-loss strategy supported by scientific evidence (it’s not).
Granted, individuals suffering from celiac disease (roughly one in every 130 people) depend on accurate gluten-free labelling to avoid a host of unpleasant and potentially dangerous symptoms accompanying the inadvertent ingestion of gluten.
However, commenting on a Mintel study published in September 2014, Mintel food industry analyst Amanda Topper noted that “82 per cent of consumers who eat gluten-free foods, or used to eat them, have not been diagnosed with celiac disease, including 44 per cent who eat those foods for reasons other than gluten intolerance or sensitivity.”
Further, the trend seems to be generational, with generation Z and millennials accounting for the majority of gluten-free dieters, according to a report published by Nielsen earlier this year.
Ironically, many of these individuals do not even know what gluten is, evidenced by a spot that aired on Jimmy Kimmel Live last spring, in which several self-professed gluten-free dieters made a mockery of themselves when asked the simple question: “What is gluten?”
Gluten, as defined in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, is a tenacious elastic protein substance, especially of wheat flour, that gives cohesiveness to dough.