GreenLite said that the launch of its new US brand ‘No way! Its gluten free’ signals its intent to build on success in the Israeli market in recent years and develop an international presence to drive the firm forward.
The Israel-based gluten-free bakery specialists have a total of 38 products on sale in its home market, under the ‘GreenLite’ brand – however Ofer Eliav, marketing manager for the firm said GreenLite will roll out a limited number of products under the new ‘No way!’ brand as it looks to tap in to the growing market for gluten-free products in the USA.
Speaking with BakeryAndSnacks.com, Eliav commented that many industry players have shown serious interest in working with the Israeli firm for private label products – but added that for the foreseeable future GreenLite was firmly concentrating on growing the presence of its own branded products in new markets under the new ‘No way!’ brand.
“We don’t do private label,” said Eliav. “We truly believe that we have a lot of technology and are a few steps ahead of other people in the market, so we want to push our brands.”
The marketing manager said that the ‘No way!’ brand would be launched in to US stores – starting in the New York area – next month, with a wider roll out across the USA and possibly even in to Europe to follow.
“This is a whole new brand,” Eliav said, adding that until now the firm has supplied ‘a few products’ for the food service market in the USA in addition to having distributors in France, the UK, and Australia for their own named GreenLite products – but said the launch of ‘No way – Its gluten free’ will be its first true foray in to the retail market outside of Israel.
Taste and technology
The GreenLite manager said the firm has created a range of bakery and bread products that have the taste and texture ‘exactly like’ regular breads and snack products.
“The one thing that is important for our customers is the taste and the texture of the products,” he said, adding that the firm is pioneering the production of puff pastry products that are indistinguishable from those that contain gluten.
In order to overcome the challenges involved in creating gluten-free products that look and taste like regular bakery goods, Eliav said that GreenLite has combined 20 years of food technology and food science experience to generate new ways of using ingredients and technologies that are already used in other areas of food production.
“For example for the artisan breads we use machinery that usually the industry would use for meat – for hotdog processing.
“Then we developed a procedure that allowed us to use that with breads.”