Gluten-free comes to marketing world
Toronto agency hopes to tap into red-hot food niche
The explosion of the gluten-free industry in recent years has given rise to hundreds of new products and now what purports to be the niche’s first specialty marketing firm — Toronto-based The Gluten-Free Agency.
“With the strong demand for glutenfree products, marketers have come to recognize the need for a team of glutenfree experts that understand the language of the gluten-free consumer and the motivations behind their purchasing behaviours,” said the firm’s director Tricia Ryan.
The trend has seen an 80 per cent explosion of gluten-free packaged food and beverage products from 2005 to 2010 and it shows no signs of slowing.
Global sales of gluten-free products totalled $12.4 billion (U.S.) in the 52 weeks leading up to August 4, 2012, an 18-per-cent increase over the previous year, according to market research and consulting firm, SPINS.
With dietician training on her resume, internet marketing specialist Ryan found she was often given food assignments at the marketing companies that hired her. And over the last seven years, she has worked with a number of brands such as Riceworks, marketing to the gluten-free consumer.
So, why not deliver the health and wellness experts, bloggers and association representatives she’d amassed under one banner, she thought.
“These days, clients don’t have the six months it can take to bring a new agency up to speed,” she explained. “Such a task can take even longer with specialized audiences like the gluten-free and celiac communities. We’re already familiar and working with them.
“Using the resources and the connections, we can put a plan together and have you talking to your consumer and build a database within a week. For example, one of my clients, as well as colleagues, is BeFreeForMe.com. She has 35,000 celiac consumers in her database, so when I have clients I can bring them to those people.”
About seven per cent of North Americans have celiac disease or non celiac gluten sensitivity which demands a gluten-free diet for life. However, 15 per cent of consumers, about 40 million people, eat gluten free for other reasons, such as weight-loss claims, or endorsements by celebrities such as, Julia Roberts and Miley Cyrus.
“The people in the gluten free category are very sensitive because people look at them as woo-woo,” said Ryan.
“Most gluten-free food solutions are little better than low-tar cigarettes as a solution for smoking,” said American wheat elimination advocate cardiologist William Davis, author of Wheat Belly.
“Processed gluten-free foods made with the usual suspects, cornstarch, rice starch or brown rice starch, tapioca starch or potato starch, are awful for health,” he asserted.
“There’s no legislation that requires the fortification of some of the other flour products, but wheat is fortified, so you are at risk of compromising your health when you start eating wonky,” acknowledged Ryan. “I’m not purporting or suggesting that eating gluten-free is healthy for people. If you do have a gluten sensitivity or celiac disease the moment you go off gluten you can’t be properly tested.”