Italy’s large-scale retail trade now stocks more than 13,000 free-from SKUs, the combined sales of which are worth €6.8 billion (+0.5% year-on-year).
The data comes from the seventh edition of the Osservatorio Immagino survey, compiled by GS1 Italy together with Nielsen, which analysed 112,000 consumer SKUs (of which nearly were 72,000 food SKUs) sold in supermarkets and hypermarkets across Italy.
Products that are seeing the most growth within this category include those that claim to be 'antibiotic-free' (+62.0%), 'yeast-free' (+1.9%) and 'palm oil free' (+1.6%), according to the study.
Products that are tailored to those with specific dietary intolerances continue to dominate the offer, with 9,431 SKUs labelled as gluten-free or lactose-free.
These products in turn generated €3.7 billion in sales last year, or 14.5% of the total turnover of the food basket monitored by Osseratorio Immagino.
Lactose-free products saw 3.6% annual growth, while the availability of such products increased by 4.5%.
The survey also highlights the strong sales performance of 'no-sugar' products (+9.1% year-on-year) and 'low-sugar' products (+7.6%).
© 2020 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Branislav Pekic. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: The European Supermarket Magazine
