Modern approaches for gluten-free baked goods production

When gluten-free products first appeared on supermarket shelves, they were an exception in the bakery sector. A baked goods segment aimed only at customers with coeliac disease, and therefore with very limited potential. The reality today is different. The market for gluten-free baked goods has not only grown steadily, but has also brought about a paradigm shift in the bakery industry. Today, gluten-free products are seen as a speciality where ingredients from an existing recipe cannot simply be substituted. Successful gluten-free baked goods production now requires structured technical expertise, clearly defined processes and a conscious vision.

For bakery professionals, this change represents both a challenge and an opportunity. Specialising in gluten-free products means not only knowing alternative flour blends or binding agents, but also mastering variables such as water content in the dough, mechanical action and processing times, and translating this knowledge into stable, repeatable processes on an industrial scale. We recognise a significant training gap here: Many professionals still rely on a predominantly experience-based culture, without the theoretical foundations and methodology required to deal with this complexity.

Gluten-free bakery production: insights from the market

RONDO is therefore collaborating with the Italian Institute of Culinary and Hospitality (CAST Alimenti). There, talented people from the industry learn more about insights from food technology and can combine this knowledge with our expertise in ingredients, machines and production processes. To better understand how the bakery industry can respond even better to the trend towards gluten-free baked goods production, we asked Filiberto Dall'Est, Area Sales Manager for Italy at RONDO, about it in an interview.

Gluten-free is often still perceived as a niche category. How do you see the market developing?

Gluten-free baked goods production has its origins in a niche driven by specific medical needs. Today, however, the market data tells a very different story. There is a solid structural base of people with coeliac disease and intolerance, which ensures a continuous demand. In recent years, however, there has also been a large segment of consumers who follow an anti-inflammatory diet and consider gluten to be pro-inflammatory. This is expanding the market.

The growth rates are constant and higher than in many other baked goods categories. Customers today expect a high-quality gluten-free offering in bakeries, hotels, and restaurants, not as a stopgap solution but as a credible and desirable one.

We are currently seeing a leap in product and process development in the industry. Gluten-free is now a speciality that is at an advanced stage of industrialisation: it is growing, becoming structured and requiring increasingly sophisticated technical skills.

Gluten fulfils precise functions: elasticity, uniformity, mechanical strength. What happens when you remove it?

When we remove the gluten, we remove the protein network that holds everything together. As a result, the dough is less elastic and more prone to tearing. These doughs are also more difficult to work with, especially during mechanical process steps such as rolling out. Stability is lower and small fluctuations in the process, which would not have such a great influence in a gluten-containing dough, have a greater impact.

To compensate for these properties, modified starches, hydrocolloids or fibres are often added to the dough. None of these substances can really mimic the behaviour of gluten. The result is a system that works, but with much more delicate balances.

What technical features should bakery machines for the production of gluten-free baked goods have?

They must be able to process the dough in a progressive and controlled manner and avoid abrupt stresses. Gradual, finely adjustable thickness reduction, uniform roller pressure and perfectly synchronised movements between processing steps are among the basics of dough processing.

The contact surfaces, which must ensure a balance between sticking and detachment, and the uniformity in the processing of the machine, which must compensate for the natural variability of the dough, are also fundamental. An effective processing line for gluten-free products is based on precision, continuity and stability.

In gluten-free production, automation is less about speed and more about control and uniformity. Standardising the critical parameters - water content, mechanical energy, temperatures, resting times - reduces the variability typical of manual processing, which becomes noticeable much more quickly with these gluten-free doughs.

Automation does not replace artisanal knowledge, but transfers it into a consistent process. It translates experience into consistent data and workflows, enabling growth while maintaining qualitative continuity.