With both my mother and my friend Lisa regularly buying gluten free products and both myself and Steve actively trying to reduce the amount of gluten we consume, often choosing to buy gluten free products ourselves, I was interested to see what people thought of the current market when it came to gluten free products. I can’t deny that the products available have increased exponentially since my Mum first started consuming them but is the market as good as it could be? MOMA recently conducted a survey to find out and the results were very interesting.
With 400 respondents, the survey focused on UK adults who regularly purchased gluten free products. The age ranges varied dramatically but the age group of the highest number of respondents was 25-34 followed by the over 55’s. Over 75% of the respondents were female and the area with the highest number of respondents was, of course, the capital city of London.
When asked how satisfied they were with the current range available, ‘Somewhat satisfied’ came out on top with ‘Somewhat unsatisfied’ following closely behind. This seems to show that there is still some way to go for gluten free products to ensure that the target market is satisfied and happy. Most respondents were also relatively unhappy with the variety in gluten free product lines.
Broken down into ages, it seems all age groups are mostly somewhat satisfied with the current range available with the 23-34 age group being the most unsatisfied age group with 51 people in that age group choosing neither satisfied or unsatisfied or lower compared to lower numbers in those areas for the other age groups.
The gender breakdown seems to tell a similar story in the fact that both females and males are mostly somewhat satisfied but are also apparently somewhat unsatisfied about the ranges available. Whilst this shows that the ranges are getting somewhere, there is still some legwork that needs to be put in apparently!
The general consensus by region is that there is not enough variety in gluten free product lines with 65 people in London believing so against the 16 who thought there was and the 23 in East Anglia against the 6 who thought there was.
What I found most interesting with these research findings is just what products people believed were missing from the market. Now I’ve often said to my mum that it is bizarre how certain products are not available for gluten free yet and it seems respondents had a similar idea.
Good varieties of breads and pastas, a good selection of pies, pastries and pizzas came up. Even gluten free alcohol, cereals and sweet items made the list. It seems criminal that those who have to eat gluten free products are still so restricted in what they can eat and drink when the gluten free market has expanded so much in recent years.
All in all, I found these survey results extremely interesting. If you are gluten free, what would you most like to see? Do you think there is enough variety?
Collaborative Post