Bah. Humbug!

[mmy_me]

Story on Stuff today - a big bakery has jumped the gluten-free bandwagon. Because, I quote, 1 in 100 NZers are gluten intolerant.

Yeah. Remember the stats I worked on lactose intolerance? One in five, potentially? Bah!

If only they'd opened that story up to comments! If only!

Comments

[estoile]

I get that reaction. I really do. On a very deep, personally-relevant level.

On the other hand, accidental exposure to lactose is, to the best of my knowledge, less likely to be life-threatening. And if gluten sensitivity is going mainstream, it increases the chance of other specialty foods becoming available.

(At any rate, none of this changes our situation in the slightest, as commercial GF products usually rely heavily on dairy and/or egg for protein and texture.)

(Which is to say that I've carefully schooled myself to respond with 'that's nice' to all such news, as the alternative is to make myself unnecessarily unhappy.)

[mmy_me]

yeah, no. My reaction is more in response to the different business scenario. Bread is not like milk; Fonterra controls 90% of the dairy industry, and they're not interested in diversity or niche markets. There's no financial advantage in it. They are already the leaders without investing in expanding their range, so why bother?

Bread is different - there are many players, roughly equal, and capturing a 'niche' market is a point of difference that can pay real financial dividends.

[estoile]

Fair call. It still seems to me that the other 10% are more likely to expand into specialty products if they see that it has worked in other parts of the food industry. But it's not my specific area of expertise.