Shows like The Natural Products Expo West in Anaheim last month can be a little overwhelming. Open only to those in the natural products industry (stores, distributors, manufacturers, media, etc.), not the general public, it’s hard to share with you the vast size and amazing diversity of items available at these shows. There is everything from allergy friendly foods to organic skin care to vitamins and pet food.
But while there were some wonderful new products to discover, I found an underlying bandwagon at the show: gluten free. New market research shows that 1 out of every 10 new products introduced this year will have a gluten free claim. Some of this is good, some not so.
On the good side, food allergies, immune system diseases and food intolerances are certainly getting more exposure, more companies are bringing out a variety of products to meet the needs of these special diets and consumers win. On the less pleasant side is the most obvious marketing technique of stamping gluten free on any and all products, even when it makes no sense.
For example, one line of dried fruit snacks at the show was labelled gluten free. Sounds great except that fruit is inherently gluten free and the FDA’s proposed gluten free labeling guidelines considers a gluten free claim to be misleading unless a statement such as “all fruit is gluten free” is accompanying the gluten free claim. Canada has the same rule in place under current labeling laws. While there may be some extenuating circumstances in this example (such as, they make bread in the same facility), there were too many of these kinds of signs in booths everywhere to mention.
It reminds me very much of the low carb frenzy and the low fat one before that. Inevitably there will be some very good companies with great products that meet the needs of people looking for specific dietary foods and there will be those who have the “get in, get out” while the going is good philosophy.
The big difference here compared to low carb is that when all is said and done, there will still be millions of us needing special dietary foods because the medical issue underlying this trend simply doesn’t go away. It is estimated that 1 in 133 Americans have Celiac disease, although not all are diagnosed. This equates to approximately 2.33 million people with Celiac disease but the estimated amount of people following a gluten free diet right now is 15 million. This is far beyond who actually needs a gluten free diet, even taking into account other medical issues that might benefit from a gluten free diet such as autism and MS.
My only hope is that the variety of foods that are truly safe and well labeled doesn’t go away with the trend when it blows back out because companies discover that the true market of those with medical diagnosis is too small for them to bother with.