Finsbury Food is hoping to broaden the appeal of its Genius gluten-free bread beyond coeliac sufferers and ramp up its category share through a £3m ­marketing campaign.

The multimedia push will run later this year in a bid to increase the brand's share of the free-from bakery market from 25% to 40%. It would ­attract half a million new consumers to the brand, predicted Finsbury, which announced the news as Warburtons revealed it would launch its first free-from products next year.

Finsbury said it welcomed Warburtons' entry as it would "raise awareness" of the category.

The total retail free-from bakery market was worth £8m per year prior to the Genius launch in February 2009 [Nielsen]. Finsbury estimated the new campaign and NPD for Genius would have increased the size of the ­market to about £20m by the end of 2010.

Unveiling its preliminary results last week for the full year ended 3 July, Finsbury finance director Stephen Boyd said the company would be expanding the Genius range in January to refresh interest in the gluten-free bakery category.

"This is a relatively small category that has grown quite significantly on the back of the Genius launch. There's been a lot of interest, not just from people with coeliac disease but by those who are making a lifestyle choice," said Boyd.

Boyd said the company would look to add at least two or three new products under the Genius brand and own-label to drive category growth. "We're taking the campaign quite seriously because we feel the coeliac population is a small proportion of our ­potential consumer base."

Topics