Addressing food allergies

By Carol Radice

For some peo­ple, a food allergy can re­sult in an upset stom­ach or a slight rash. For oth­ers, the reac­tion can be life threat­en­ing. But even mild food aller­gies or intol­er­ances can make gro­cery shop­ping a daunt­ing task.

While the obvi­ous advice might be to sim­ply avoid cer­tain foods, the real­ity is not as straight­for­ward. Peanut allergy suf­fer­ers, for exam­ple, need to avoid many types of salad dress­ings, hot choco­late, Asian and Mex­i­can dishes and spe­cialty pizzas.

Rec­og­niz­ing this untapped mar­ket, a num­ber of com­pa­nies have emerged over the past decade to develop allergen-free prod­ucts, even ded­i­cat­ing entire man­u­fac­tur­ing facil­i­ties to pro­duc­ing prod­ucts with­out nuts, for exam­ple. Some main­stream man­u­fac­tur­ers have also begun intro­duc­ing prod­ucts aimed at con­sumers with food allergies.

Scott Man­dell, pres­i­dent and CEO of Schiller Park, Ill.-based Enjoy Life Foods, says when his com­pany was started nearly a decade ago, few com­pa­nies focused on offer­ing prod­ucts tar­geted to this con­sumer despite the fact that mil­lions of peo­ple had some type of food allergy. “Respond­ing to this need, we cre­ated a brand free of gluten and all com­mon aller­gens,” he says. “Hav­ing our own ded­i­cated facil­ity means there is zero chance of con­t­a­m­i­na­tion, some­thing not every com­pany can claim.”

Accord­ing to Man­dell, cur­rent sta­tis­tics show that one in three Amer­i­cans mod­ify their diets with the belief that they, or a loved one, have a food allergy or intolerance.

While ensur­ing an allergen-free prod­uct can be chal­leng­ing, he says the prod­ucts also have to taste good. To keep track, Enjoy Life Foods turns to its large data­base on a reg­u­lar basis and enlists the help of its con­sumers to shape changes to exist­ing prod­ucts as well as obtain­ing input for new ones. Some­times the com­pany sends out test sam­ples and uses its web­site to gather feedback.

Enjoy Life Foods also uses social media out­lets such as Face­book to pro­mote its prod­ucts and get feed­back on new items. “We recently made changes to our gra­nola based on con­sumer input, which in the end was a sig­nif­i­cant improve­ment in taste,“ he says. “Allergy con­sumers are very brand loyal and want to help any way they can. When one per­son dis­cov­ers safe foods are avail­able, word gets out.”

Safe and tasty

Back in the early ‘80s, the options for con­sumers with food aller­gies were even more lim­ited, notes Laura Kuyk­endall, senior mar­ket­ing man­ager at the Laval, Que­bec, Canada-based Glutino Food Group, a manufacturer/distributor spe­cial­iz­ing in gluten-free prod­ucts, rang­ing from bak­ery and bak­ing mixes to snacks, frozen meals and other items under the Glutino and Gluten-Free Pantry labels. “Our com­pany was founded solely on the idea of address­ing the needs of con­sumers with food allergy and intol­er­ance issues. At that time, there wasn’t a lot of aware­ness of the size and scope of the issue, let alone choices for con­sumers that tasted good,” says Kuykendall.

“Two decades ago, our goal was to pro­duce deli­cious tast­ing prod­ucts that were gluten free and wheat free that could go toe-to-toe with any main­stream prod­uct in terms of taste,” she says. “A lot has changed for the bet­ter since then and today the indus­try has evolved in terms of aware­ness and options. We’re happy to see retail­ers have addi­tional brands to fea­ture and make our­selves avail­able to them to help them under­stand what a gluten-free set should look like.”

Since 2000, Lawrence, Mass.-based Ian’s Nat­ural Foods has focused on offer­ing health­ier food options for kids by pro­vid­ing con­ve­nient, tasty solu­tions, includ­ing allergy-free choices. “We’re proud of the fact that we have offered allergy-free prod­ucts for the past 10 years, before it was a fash­ion­able mar­ket­ing hook,” says Dena Zigun, brand man­ager. “The num­ber of con­sumers with food aller­gies has grown in the past 10 years. Today, research shows one in 100 peo­ple have celiac issues, some­thing fac­ing chil­dren as well as adults. With this in mind, our goal was to pro­vide food for kids that looks and tastes just like the con­ven­tional prod­ucts their friends are eat­ing but are free of cer­tain aller­gens. It was impor­tant to us that once out of the pack­age our items blend in with con­ven­tional offerings.”

For par­ents to be able to trust that what they are buy­ing is healthy for their kids is crit­i­cal, notes Zigun. “Trust is para­mount when it comes to food for kids, par­tic­u­larly for those with food aller­gies. Mom needs to absolutely be sure that the prod­uct is not only free of the aller­gens it claims it is, but that it was made in a safe envi­ron­ment,” she says. Zigun notes that while many of Ian’s prod­ucts are geared toward young kids many of their con­sumers con­tinue to buy their prod­ucts for their older kids and teens because they trust the brand.

“We also wanted it to have the same con­ve­nience fea­tures other foods have, includ­ing porta­bil­ity or easy to heat and eat that kids can do it them­selves,” says Zigun. “Our Waffle­wich break­fast sand­wiches are a great exam­ple of this—they microwave up beau­ti­fully in min­utes. We spend a lot of time with focus groups, dis­cern­ing what works and what doesn’t, where we need to tweak, etc.”

Morn­ing glory

For com­pa­nies such as Nature’s Path, based in Rich­mond, British Colum­bia, Canada, gluten-free options have become a grow­ing part of the mix. The com­pany recently extended its gluten-free prod­uct line with two vari­eties of Sun­rise Cereal.

“We are con­stantly doing research and ask­ing cus­tomers what they are look­ing for in a break­fast prod­uct,” says Nicola Shaw, brand man­ager for Sun­rise Cereal. “What we learned is that con­sumers were look­ing for gluten-free alter­na­tives that had a bet­ter nutri­tional pro­file in which they did not have to give up taste and health­i­ness. Given that celiac is an autoim­mune dis­or­der, we wanted to pro­vide con­sumers with an organic gluten-free cereal option.”

Sun­rise Cere­als include ancient whole grains such as quinoa and ama­ranth, which are com­plete pro­teins, as well as flax seed for omega 3s and inulin as a source of pre­bi­otic fiber. Unlike other gluten-free cere­als, the cere­als are not made with corn or rice, ingre­di­ents that lack fiber and are higher in sugar, accord­ing to com­pany officials.

Focus­ing on gluten-free bak­ery offer­ings, Minneapolis-based French Meadow Bak­ery, a divi­sion of Rich Prod­ucts Corp., offers a gluten-free prod­uct port­fo­lio that includes breads, tor­tillas, pizza crusts, rolls and muffins as well as desserts. “We saw an oppor­tu­nity to lead the gluten-free dessert mar­ket in the in-store bak­ery cat­e­gory by pro­vid­ing read­ily acces­si­ble, great tast­ing, fully fin­ished cakes for cel­e­bra­tions such birth­days,” says cat­e­gory man­ager Tina Battistoni-Paul. “The in-store bak­ery depart­ment is where the major­ity of con­sumers go to pur­chase cakes and desserts for cel­e­bra­tions so it makes sense to fea­ture gluten-free offer­ings here.”

A mat­ter of trust

Under­stand­ing the need for cred­i­bil­ity and trust, French Meadow Bak­ery man­u­fac­tures its gluten-free prod­ucts in a ded­i­cated gluten-free facil­ity. “Our plant and prod­ucts are cer­ti­fied gluten-free by the Gluten Free Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion Orga­ni­za­tion and also carry the fol­low­ing claims:  lac­tose free, casein free, peanut free and zero trans fat,” she says.

For other com­pa­nies such as Cher­ry­brook Kitchen the need to cre­ate allergy-free prod­ucts began as a per­sonal one. “Patsy Rosen­berg, the owner of our com­pany was diag­nosed with food aller­gies a decade ago and real­ized most bak­ing mixes on the mar­ket con­tained eggs, dairy and gluten,” says Sal­lie Bowl­ing, vice pres­i­dent of sales for the Burling­ton, Mass.-based com­pany. “She started devel­op­ing recipes for her­self that were peanut free, wheat free egg free, dairy free and nut free. Her friends and fam­ily enjoyed them so much she decided to start the com­pany. What’s great about our prod­ucts is that peo­ple have no idea that these cook­ies, cakes and frost­ings are allergy friendly or that our wheat-free prod­ucts con­tain no gluten because they taste so delicious.”

Today, Cher­ry­brook Kitchen prod­ucts are avail­able nation­ally in major retail­ers such as Kroger, Stop & Shop and Shaw’s. With so many com­pa­nies vying for a piece of the food allergy busi­ness, Bowl­ing sug­gests retail­ers focus on aspects such as safety. “Con­sumers need to know these prod­ucts truly are safe for them and their fam­i­lies to eat. The sec­ond issue is taste. Although the taste pro­files of most allergy-free prod­ucts have come a long way there are still some that have not evolved. With so many choices retail­ers and con­sumers, there’s no rea­son to set­tle for any­thing less than ter­rific. It’s easy to sell the first box of any­thing off the shelf, it’s the repeat busi­ness they need to focus on,” she says.

Offi­cials at Boul­der, Colo.-based Earth Bal­ance have also wit­nessed the evo­lu­tion of the cat­e­gory. When the com­pany intro­duced its spreads a decade ago, the focus was on con­sumers look­ing to lower their cho­les­terol intake Since then, the com­pany has gained a loyal fol­low­ing, in part because its spreads don’t con­tain dairy, which is appeal­ing to lac­tose intol­er­ant and vegan con­sumers. “It is ironic that we are inti­mately embraced by dairy avoiders because that was never the inten­tion of our plat­form when we launched our prod­ucts,” says gen­eral man­ager T.J. McIntyre.

Hav­ing the only nation­ally dis­trib­uted, dairy-free spread has made Earth Bal­ance a sta­ple in many kitchens, accord­ing to com­pany offi­cials. It also hasn’t hurt that celebri­ties such as Ali­cia Sil­ver­stone have pro­vided a pub­lic­ity boost. In 2009, Earth Bal­ance intro­duced an all-natural, buttery-type spread which is vegan, soy free, has zero grams of trans fat per serv­ing, does not con­tain hydro­genated oils or arti­fi­cial ingre­di­ents of any kind and is an excel­lent source of omega 3s.

“We launched a soy-free ver­sion of our best sell­ing spread because it was our num­ber one con­sumer request. The spread, which is a blend of palm fruit, canola, saf­flower and olive oils, is a great option for any­one avoid­ing soy-based prod­ucts and in addi­tion to being soy free it con­tains no dairy and is nat­u­rally gluten free,” says McIn­tyre, not­ing that in a short time the prod­uct has quickly jumped to being one of its top-selling items.

Given that 40 mil­lion con­sumers have been iden­ti­fied as hav­ing celiac dis­ease or are choos­ing to eat gluten-free for other dietary rea­sons Aimee Sands, mar­ket­ing direc­tor for Annie’s Home­grown, based in Napa, Calif., says this presents a huge oppor­tu­nity for retail­ers to add items to their lineup that cater to this grow­ing con­sumer group. “These peo­ple are very inter­ested in eas­ily find­ing prod­ucts that fit into their lifestyle needs,” she says. “After hear­ing from our con­sumers that they’d like us to offer more gluten-free options we recently launched a gluten-free ver­sion of our Bunny Cook­ies and our Rice Pasta and Extra Cheesy Ched­dar mac­a­roni din­ner. It was impor­tant to us that these two items were deli­cious enough to stand on their own so that fam­i­lies with mem­bers who have food aller­gies could all eat the same thing. All the ingre­di­ents are clearly called out on the front panel of our pack­ag­ing so that busy con­sumers can quickly find the allergy infor­ma­tion.”

Easy to find

Battistoni-Paul notes that while retail­ers have made strides, they are still often chal­lenged in deter­min­ing the best way to mer­chan­dise gluten-free prod­ucts and tar­get this shop­per seg­ment. “To com­pli­cate the issue, to date, peo­ple with a gluten intol­er­ance or celiac dis­ease haven’t had many options, aside from order­ing prod­ucts online or pick­ing them up at health food stores. So the added chal­lenge is that tar­get con­sumers don’t know to look in a main­stream super­mar­ket, let alone where in the store to go for the prod­ucts,” she says. Two places French Meadow prod­ucts sell best, accord­ing to Battistoni-Paul, are the in the nat­ural foods sec­tion and the in-store bakery.

To help retail­ers over­come some of these mer­chan­dis­ing chal­lenges, French Meadow offi­cials have cre­ated a turnkey rack, which enables a retailer to dis­play prod­ucts in one cen­tral­ized loca­tion and cre­ate a des­ti­na­tion. “Our sales team also lends value-added sup­port in the stores we serve by edu­cat­ing store asso­ciates about our prod­ucts, par­tic­i­pat­ing in health fairs and grand open­ings and engag­ing cus­tomers to drive aware­ness,” she says. “With French Meadow Bak­ery, retail­ers get more than just prod­ucts, they get a knowl­edge­able part­ner to help them inte­grate gluten-free prod­ucts into the store and gen­er­ate con­sumer aware­ness to drive sales.”

While gluten-free is gain­ing most of the atten­tion in the cat­e­gory, Man­dell says he’d like retail­ers to con­sider giv­ing equal atten­tion the larger food allergy cat­e­gory. Down the road he’d love to see dual place­ment, both within the allergy set and among con­ven­tional prod­ucts is ideal, but for now he’s con­tent with place­ment in the food allergy set.

To help prod­uct attrib­utes stand out, Enjoy Life fea­tures a green logo in the lower left cor­ner of all its pack­ages which lets con­sumers know the prod­ucts are allergy friendly. Cit­ing the mer­chan­dis­ing efforts made by Whole Foods and Wegman’s, Man­dell says he’d like to see more retail­ers get involved at that level. “Each of these retail­ers has asked us to give talks to their employ­ees about the chal­lenges of liv­ing gluten-free so that their staff can edu­cate them­selves on the topic. Many tra­di­tional gro­cers are loos­ing cus­tomers to these two com­pa­nies because they don’t have the assort­ment nor do they do any­thing above and beyond to build loy­alty and show cus­tomers they care about their food allergy needs. Given the higher bas­ket ring asso­ci­ated with this con­sumer group retail­ers who don’t cater to their needs are leav­ing money on the table,” says Mandell.

Under­stand­ing the frus­tra­tion con­sumers have not only find­ing prod­ucts, but deter­min­ing which are safe for their fam­ily offi­cials at Ian’s decided to fea­ture its prod­ucts in an easy-to-see bright yel­low pack­age. The com­pany also includes a promi­nent red ban­ner on its allergy-free line of products.

“We did this so Moms can eas­ily dis­cern which of our prod­ucts are safest for their child,” says Zigun. “Cus­tomers who try one of our prod­ucts and are happy with the expe­ri­ence are likely to try our other products.”

For 2010, she sees inter­est con­tin­u­ing and expanded dis­tri­b­u­tion for the company’s nut-free, dry snack options such as its Berry Cherry and Sour Apple and Cherry FruitaBits. Zigun calls FruitaBits “crunchy fruit snacks coated in a fruit puree which come in indi­vid­ual sleeves mak­ing them great school snacks.” Mix to Go is another prod­uct Zigun expects to grow in 2010. This snack mix comes in indi­vid­ual serv­ing sizes and is avail­able in two fla­vors, Rodeo and Jun­gle, she says.

Glutino’s Kuyk­endall describes the con­sumer shop­ping this cat­e­gory as a label reader and some­one who has learned to rec­og­nize “safe brands,” regard­less of where the prod­ucts are placed in the store. “With our prod­ucts for exam­ple, shop­pers see our brand mark and imme­di­ately asso­ciate it with wheat-free/gluten-free,” she says. While dual place­ment would be nice, she says she is com­fort­able with the fact that most retail­ers have cho­sen to make gluten-free prod­ucts a sub­set of their nat­ural and organic set. “Peo­ple look­ing for these prod­ucts have a com­fort level find­ing them in the nat­ural set because there is more of an implied trust fac­tor here.”