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Gluten-free menu marketing on the rise

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As a life-long sufferer of celiac disease, Bob Levy has learned the hard way to recognize gluten-free foods on restaurant menus. If he consumes foods containing gluten from wheat, barley, oats or rye, he may endure severe abdominal cramping and nausea, so learning to recognize those gluten-laden ingredients helps.

"When you have this [disease], you can't depend on the [restaurateur or chef] to tell you what you can't have; you've got to know for yourself," says Levy, co-owner of Bob and Ruth's Travel and Dining Clubs, which organizes culinary tours worldwide for people with celiac disease. Levy also publishes newsletters reviewing and promoting restaurants providing good gluten-free offerings.

Despite the growing efforts to develop and promote items celiac suffers can eat — be it on menus, table tents or even in advertisements — he says restaurants have a long way to go to meet those needs. "The industry is just beginning to wake up to it, but it's still hit and miss," he says. "There are plenty of foods that are gluten-free, but there aren't a lot of menus that say it."

Though widely recognized in Europe, celiac disease gets comparably little attention in the United States, says Elaine Monarch, founder and director of the Celiac Disease Foundation. Though 3 million Americans have been diagnosed with the condition, Monarch says she believes that group represents just a slice of the actual celiac populace. With so many others yet to be diagnosed, she sees a huge opportunity for restaurants to serve them.

"You're in a service business, so I think it would benefit you to make it known you have those items," Monarch says.

Yet other than restaurants like Manhattan's Risotteria, whose 100-percent gluten-free menu is its stock in trade, it's hard to find restaurants that actively promote gluten-free options. Large chains such Outback Steakhouse, Carraba's Italian Grill, Bonefish Grill and Mitchell's Seafood offer gluten-free menus, but guests don't know about them unless they specifically ask for the menus at the table or check those chains' websites ahead of time. Count among the same group the 53-unit Charlie Brown's Steakhouse chain, whose marketing director, Rich Covey, says the chain delivers its gluten-free menu to the table only upon request.

"Given all the other pieces we present to the guest normally, we found it more suitable to have a separate piece" for those who ask for it, he says. The chain hasn't been swamped with gluten-free requests, but he says interest has grown steadily over time. "Over the last five years, attention is definitely at a much higher level than in the past."

Levy says celiac sufferers appreciate efforts of restaurants to highlight regular menu items that are gluten-free, but he says companies that disseminate that information before the guest arrives will benefit the most. "Celiacs," as those with the disease call themselves, say that since their diets are restrictive, friends and family typically allow them to choose where to eat when dining out as a group. Therefore, Levy says, websites listing gluten-free items are immensely helpful, as would be advertisements saying, "We have this for you, or we'll make something special for you."

Levy praised Legal Sea Foods for its development of highly flavorful gluten-free items. What a lot of restaurants do is "take everything that's gluten-free on the regular menu — things I could have ordered on my own, like plain fish or salad without croutons — and just list them on a separate menu. But Legal Sea Foods has made a fried calamari using cornmeal, which we can have, and it's delightful. They have a special clam chowder made without a roux. You look at that and say, 'Gee this is cool. I can get a lot of stuff here I can't anywhere else.' "

And yet, according to a Legal Sea Foods spokeswoman, the gluten-free menu isn't widely promoted by the chain. Like at Charlie Brown's, the menu is presented only on request. But, Levy says, better promotion of gluten-free offerings is happening, albeit slowly.

"I've seen some deli meats companies doing this in their TV advertisements; they mention that their product is gluten-free," he says. Just as food marketers utilized terms like "trans-fat free" or "low-carb," Levy says he believes "gluten-free" will get more play. "When you listen to those advertisements, you start to hear them making it part of the nomenclature."

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