"Gluten free" is the leading claim in the "free from" positioning for food and beverage products globally, and one in ten new food and drink products launched around the world are gluten free, according to Innova Market Insights.
Products positioned on a gluten-free platform accounted for 10 per cent of total global food and drinks launches recorded by Innova Market Insights in the 12 months to the end of April 2015, rising to over 18 per cent in the US.
“This is partly due to improved labelling regulations,” says Lu Ann Williams, Director of Innovation at Innova Market Insights “but also to rising awareness of gluten intolerance in the diet and the development of more mainstream and good-tasting gluten-free products across a whole range of food and drinks sectors.”
“Gluten intolerance is no longer the only reason for buying gluten-free foods,” Williams says. “Issues such as overall well-being, digestive health, weight management and nutritional value often deemed to be equally if not more important by consumers.
“With more labelling of gluten-free foods and the growing availability of a range of high quality products with a good sensory profile, the sector seems set to take further advantage of the huge potential market for this type of product,” she says.
Key areas for activity in recent years have been in bakery and cereal products and snack foods, largely because of rising demand for alternatives to the relatively high number of gluten-containing lines in these sectors or because of the availability of alternative gluten-free ingredients.
The cereal products market, encompassing breakfast cereals and cereal bars, is relatively well set up to cater to the gluten-free trend, with numerous non-gluten cereal options already available, according to Innova.
The snacks market is also seeing a relatively high proportion of launches featuring gluten-free claims, averaging 13 per cent globally, but rising to over 42 per cent in the US.
Many other areas of the food and drinks market are also seeing rising levels of interest in gluten-free reformulations, or even in just emphasising the gluten-free nature of existing lines, according to Innova.
