The global Free From category is undergoing a profound transformation. What began as a niche for allergy management has evolved into a fast-growing lifestyle sector shaped by rising health awareness, clean-label preferences, and growing flexitarianism.
In the UK, the category remains resilient. As several studies have recently shown, it continues to grow in value, especially within ambient segments. Tellingly, growth is largely driven by private label, while branded players are losing shelf space and consumer relevance. At the same time, the shopper base has widened. Today’s consumers – especially younger ones – expect food to reflect their personal needs and values. They seek not just substitutes, but full choice, flavour and convenience.
As Free From evolves, new challenges are emerging, especially for brands.
The Main Challenges Facing Free From
Despite its resilience, Free From is among the most demanding categories to manage. Manufacturing complexity is a defining challenge. Unlike conventional production, Free From requires segregated lines, certified suppliers, clean-room packaging, and extensive testing. These processes raise costs and limit the number of producers able to deliver at the right quality, cost, and compliance levels. Smaller producers often struggle with these demands, while larger ones face high operating costs and limited flexibility.
Risk sensitivity is equally critical. In standard products, a small deviation may affect flavour, but not trust. In Free From, even the smallest undeclared trace of gluten or milk can carry serious health consequences. Moreover, errors can trigger highly visible recalls that are both costly and damaging. This means that quality management, supplier auditing, and traceability must operate at a far higher standard than in conventional categories.
Cost-to-serve also remains high. Free From is frequently characterised by lower volumes, making it difficult to balance production runs with realistic rates of sale. Reduced shelf life, linked to the exclusion of certain preservatives, further complicates stock management, with packaging posing additional risks, as high minimum order quantities, frequent legislative changes, and on-pack communication requirements create additional costs and waste. Together, these factors result in an expensive, complex, and fragile supply chain.
Finally, identifying the right sourcing partners is not an easy task. As the combination of technical rigour, operational efficiency, and flexibility required to meet UK standards is rare, aligning retailers with producers who can deliver compliant, consistent, and competitive products remains one of the toughest barriers to growth.
Brands vs Private Label
As the category evolves and faces new challenges, the Free From aisle has become a highly competitive battleground between brands and private label.
One may think that brands are well-placed to lead. The category lends itself to premiumisation, specialist expertise, and strong storytelling. Consumers are often willing to pay more where trust is assured. Yet branded performance has been underwhelming. Many specialist brands lack the scale to compete on manufacturing or logistics efficiency and are thus unable to deliver strong value. On the other hand, larger mainstream brands have extended into Free From, but these extensions often feel like afterthoughts, lacking credibility and focus. For these businesses, Free From is peripheral, and the consumer senses it.
Private label, by contrast, has grown strongly. Retailers can access the same manufacturing base as brands, but with scale advantages. They can develop focused Free From ranges that speak directly to shopper needs, while also benefiting from efficiencies that allow them to reinvest in pricing. Even more importantly, retailers see Free From shoppers as strategic for the full basket. This creates a strong incentive to build credible own-label ranges, ensuring both category growth and broader basket loyalty.
As a result, private label is increasingly perceived as the best value proposition, with quality, lower price, and strategic backing being the key drivers of the shift from branded to retailer ranges.
The Role of Innovation: Expanding Usage and Reducing the Free From Premium
Innovation is critical to retailers’ success. Rather than seeking novelty for novelty’s sake, retailers are looking at ways to make products more affordable and relevant across usage occasions, to better meet shopper needs.
Too often, consumers with dietary requirements are limited in what they cook, serve, or enjoy on the go. Retailers should thus prioritise innovation that unlocks new meal occasions, from sharing platters and ready meals to world foods, so that Free From can become part of everyday menus, and not just a corner of the aisle.
Innovation aimed at reducing the Free From price premium is equally important. Consumers shouldn’t be penalised for choosing Free From. The answer lies in smarter product development, that is, leveraging efficiencies and developing better sourcing strategies to bring products to market at accessible price points while maintaining quality.
In other words, effective innovation is less about trend-driven launches and more about expanding everyday choice, reducing the price premium, and helping consumers live and eat without compromise.
A New Course for the Free From Category
Free From is no longer a niche. Although it carries a high level of complexity and risk, the category has become a mainstream expectation, driven by shifting health priorities, rising self-diagnosis, and growing individualism in food.
What we are witnessing now is a shift in the balance of power, with private label outperforming brands in value and consumer perception. Future growth will depend on rationalising ranges, backing the strongest propositions, and innovating to expand usage while reducing the price premium. Ultimately, the winners in the Free From arena will be those organisations capable of delivering real value to shoppers who are increasingly uncompromising in their food choices.
Comments are closed.