Price tag higher on allergen-free vs. allergen-containing foods in Midwest grocery stores

Key takeaways:

• Researchers reported a 2.6 times higher average cost when assessing gluten-free vs. gluten-containing bread.
• Dairy ice cream averaged at 18 cents per ounce, whereas the dairy-free option averaged at 45 cents.

SAN DIEGO — In Midwest grocery stores, various allergen-free foods, including gluten-free bread, dairy-free ice cream and sunflower butter, cost more on average per ounce vs. allergen-containing items, according to a presentation here.

This research was presented at the 2025 American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology/World Allergy Organization Joint Congress.

“Food allergy costs U.S. families over $25 billion annually,” Pranav Bajaj, a medical student at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, and colleagues wrote.

Using prices collected from five large Midwest grocery stores in July and August 2024, Bajaj and colleagues compared average prices of four allergen-free items — gluten-free bread, gluten-free pasta, dairy-free ice cream and sunflower butter — with the average prices of the matching allergen-containing items to uncover how they each differ.

During this analysis, researchers found higher average costs per ounce for each allergen-free food vs. the allergen-containing food.

In the studied grocery stores, gluten-containing bread averaged at 20 cents per ounce, whereas gluten-free bread averaged at 52 cents per ounce, and the abstract highlighted this as a 2.6 times higher cost.

Similar to above, researchers reported a 2.6 times higher average cost when evaluating gluten-free pasta vs. gluten-containing pasta (44 cents per ounce vs. 17 cents per ounce).

Dairy-containing ice cream averaged at 18 cents per ounce, whereas dairy-free ice cream averaged at 45 cents per ounce (2.5 times higher). Notably, the average price reported for dairy-free ice cream factored in several dairy-free options (“oat, cashew, coconut milk and more”), according to the abstract.

Lastly, researchers found a two times higher average cost during the assessment of sunflower butter vs. peanut butter (51 cents per ounce vs. 25 cents per ounce).

“Further research should investigate potential solutions, including insurance coverage for food as medicine to minimize such disparities,” Bajaj and colleagues wrote.