Dive Brief:
- About one in 10 global food and drink product launches were for gluten-free products in the 12 months leading up to April 2015, according to Innova Market Insights. That number rose to about 18% of product launches in the U.S.
- "This [growth] is partly due to improved labelling regulations, 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," Innova Market Insights director of innovation Lu Ann Williams said.
- Bakery and cereal products as well as snack foods were the most significant participants. This makes sense, as these foods traditionally contain gluten, and demand has been rising for gluten-free varieties of these categories. In the cereals and snack foods segments, gluten-free products accounted for about 21% and 13% of global product launches respectively, and those numbers again significantly increased in the U.S. to 43% and 42%.
Dive Insight:
Gluten-free products have not been relegated to smaller companies as they may have been in the past, as more major food companies are getting onboard with this health-related consumer trend. General Mills recently announced that Lucky Charms would soon be gluten-free, and earlier this year, Snyder's-Lance released a handful of gluten-free products as well.
Gluten-free food sales in the U.S. have sustained a compound annual growth rate of 34% over the past five years, and Packaged Facts predicts gluten-free will become a more than $2 billion industry by 2019.