NEW YORK – Gluten-free products are proliferating across the U.S., the New York Times reports, showing up in Girl Scout cookies and even vodka.

The GF-moniker is resonating strongly with consumers: The percentage of households that purchased gluten-free foods reached 11% last year, up from 5% in 2010, according to Nielsen. The demand translates to roughly $10.5 billion in sales, according to Mintel, which forecasts the category will generate more than $15 billion in sales in 2016.

While a portion of GF enthusiasts have celiac disease or gluten sensitivity and thus consume gluten-free foods for health reasons, the majority do so for non-medical reasons. 

“There are truly people out there who need gluten-free foods for health reasons, but they are not the majority of consumers who are driving this market,” said Virginia Morris, vice president for consumer strategy and insights at Daymon Worldwide, a private brand and consumer interactions company. “The reason I do believe this has legs is that it ties into this whole naked and ‘free from’ trend,” she said. “I think we as a country and as a globe will continue to be concerned about what’s going into our food supply.”

Gluten-free shoppers are valuable consumers, buying roughly $100 in sales with their average shopping basket compared with $33 for the overall basket, according to Catalina Marketing.

Wegmans is the country’s largest seller of gluten-free products, having launched a private label line in the 1990s. “Up until about two years ago, our approach pretty much was that if we could make any Wegmans brand product gluten-free, we did,” said Trish Kazacos, the grocery chain’s nutritionist.

Indiana has labeled its popcorn gluten-free long before the fad began, because the company’s CEO, Hitesh Hajarnavis, has children who have food allergies. “I had become an avid reader of labels, and so when I came over to Popcorn Indiana, I knew the value of having a clear gluten-free label for what was then a very small number of people with gluten allergies,” Hajarnavis said.

The company has since shifted to promoting the popcorn’s low calories more prominently than its gluten-free quality.

“Look, the thing here, in my opinion, is that there is a small number of people who have celiac disease or are gluten intolerant,” Hajarnavis said. “But there is a growing population of people who have somehow heard that gluten-free is healthier or think of it as fashionable, and when they remove gluten from their diet, they’re inadvertently taking out a lot of processed foods and are really feeling the benefits of eating healthier foods.”