More and more gluten-free products: Breweries rely on beer without Gluten

Lady Gaga does it. Miley Cyrus and Gwyneth Paltrow, too. And several million people in Germany as well: you eat gluten-free.

Because you need it for health reasons or nutritional reasons.

The market for gluten-free foods has been growing for years – now, a new product comes from Bitburg: The Bitburger brewery has developed a gluten-free beer that is now available to buy in Germany.

It should permanently belong to the Bitburger range.

Many cereals contain Gluten

“More and more people have to or want to avoid in your diet to Gluten,” says the spokesman of the management Board of the Bitburger brewery group, Axel Dahm. And the new beer should be.

Gluten is contained in many cereals, including malting barley. More than two years, the brewers have fiddled in the Eifel region, on the bright lager beer, the Gluten by a natural enzyme during the maturation is reduced.

Bitburger was the first major brewery to offer the gluten-free beer under their brand, says Dahm. An Insider in the industry confirmed this statement.

However, there are already a few smaller providers of gluten-free Beers on the market. How, for example, the Bavarian brewery Neumarkter Lammsbräu, which has two “gluten-free specialties” in the offer.

Both products have evolved over the past several years, says managing Director Johannes Ehrnsperger. Or, the brewery Schleicher in Itzgrund (Bavaria) with your gluten-free organic beer.

Gluten-free beer is an absolute niche product

The market for Beers “free of Gluten”, however, is still “a niche market”, says the spokesperson for the German Brewers ‘ Association in Berlin.

This is also the spokesman for the Radeberger group, says: “With an estimated market share of less than one-half of one percent of the total beer market gluten-free Beers in Germany hardly play a role.”

Therefore, a subsidiary of the group got Beers, the society of import and specialty Beers, the sales of their gluten-free pioneer-Pilseners set the end of 2019.

Gluten-free foods were “an exciting market”, says the Radeberger spokeswoman in Frankfurt. But: Even if the total sales in percentage terms, two waxes digits – the Segment “beer” does not keep pace with this development.

If your gluten-free beer, the 2016 came out, a “popular niche product,” be, have been, for the audience at the end, however, as too small.

Competitive Beer Market

Bitburger is hoping to the Start of your gluten-free beer, the first in the six-pack available at an additional business. Already in the run-up, there have been so many requests from consumers when the beer come from in the trade, says the speaker of the Assembly.

“We have had so never.” She is convinced: “The demand is great.” Insider reports, other brewers were also offering gluten-free Beers waiting in the wings.

The beer market is under great pressure of competition, the shrinking paragraph. The more important it is “to serve consumers ‘needs” with new products, it said.

The Breweries in Germany have sold in 2019 as little beer as is for many years. With a paragraph of a score of 9.22 billion litres the previous minus has been record from the year 2017 (9,35 billion liters) undercut, had been reported to the Federal Statistical office at the end of January.

More and more gluten-free products

Of a gluten intolerance (celiac disease) are affected according to the German celiac disease society, more than 800,000 people in Germany. This corresponds to approximately one percent of the population.

Add to that people who have a Gluten sensitivity, and those that do without as a Trend to Gluten. “We are pleased that more and more products come on the market,” says a spokesman for the company in Stuttgart.

The range of products is growing steadily – the rich range today from frozen pizza to cookies. Now the Bitburger gluten get free, was good, because then such a beer is across the country readily available.

In the previous gluten-free Beers – as well as in other foods without Gluten, it was, however, so that they are approximately twice as expensive as the products with Gluten, says the spokesman.

Celiac disease is an autoimmune disease

In coeliac patients the ingestion of Gluten leads to inflammation of the small intestine and regression of small intestinal villi.

Thus, nutrients are not absorbed as in healthy people in sufficient quantity from the intestinal.

Result deficiencies that can show up in symptoms such as diarrhea, indigestion or Nausea. The only Chance to get the disease in the handle, it is a life-long gluten-containing food to be dispensed.

Source

• Federal statistical office of Germany: beer sales in the year 2019, which is 1.9 % compared to the previous year, dropped, retrieved on 03.03.2020: https://www.destatis.de/DE/Presse/Pressemitteilungen/2020/01/PD20_032_799.html

Deutsche Presse-Agentur (dpa)

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