Gluten Free Global Demand rockets, as America leads the way in 2009, see how the USA compares.

Feb 4
10:08

2010

Bruce Scott Dwyer

Bruce Scott Dwyer

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Extensive original research and analysis has been performed on the global state of online demand for gluten free associated products between 2008 and 2009. It shows that America had the highest online search growth at a GFP rating of 5.5 celiac searches per month, followed by Canada (4.8), Australia (4.8) and UK (3.3). We look at the fastest growing gluten free group categories and which have decreased.

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For global gluten free demand comparison,Gluten Free Global Demand rockets, as America leads the way in 2009, see how the USA compares. Articles one of the primary concepts was defined as ‘Celiac searches per month’. This measure is a way of comparing the relative strength of the gluten free market across countries. It equates to the notional value of how many times on average, a celiac (diagnosed and undiagnosed) search online for gluten free associated terms each month. This research primarily uses the Google data sets.

COUNTRY……........Celiac Searches/mth ….. Search volumes

Aust 08…………….…4.2………………………………….911,494

US Eng 08…………..3.1……………………………….…8,288,917

Canada Eng 08…..3.7………………………………….1,125,893

UK 08………………….2.2………………………………….1,363,949

Aust 09……………….4.8………………………………….1,018,681

US Eng 09…………..5.5………………………………….16,959,812

Canada Eng 09……4.8………………………………….1,616,217

UK 09………………….3.3…………………………………..2,035,719

What the celiac search values mean

The search volumes are the total gluten free associated term searches per month in each country and are adjusted for internet penetration and google market share.

The ‘celiac searches per month’ maybe explained by example. Assuming 1% of the population are celiac, then a value of 4.0 suggests that if every celiac was diagnosed, then on average they would be searching for gluten free associated terms 4 times per month. While this notational value may not be completely true in practice it does provide a base scale on which to measure and compare all countries. It is noted that America’s corporate marketing machine and search engine optimization tracking of keywords may also artificially increase their value to some degree.

Year 2009 Gluten Free Demand highlights

The USA has made one of the largest gluten free online demand gains over the last year (2009), probably as it recovers from the global financial crisis and more people get diagnosed and act on it. Increasing from 3.1 to 5.5 ‘celiac searches’ is a 77% increase in demand! Australia increased the least over this period (4.2 to 4.8 - a 14% increase), however with a low population ( 1 / 15th of USA) and nowhere near the marketing power that US food conglomerates can use to promote gluten free foods, it can be seen that this modest increase is still quite significant.

Both Canada (3.7 to 4.8 – a 30% increase) and UK (2.2 to 3.3 – a 50% increase) increased a similar amount in terms of raw searches per population.

All of these countries have at least 80% undiagnosed celiac in them, so a major driver of gluten free demand is the diagnosis of these people. This has to do with the affordability of a country’s healthcare, the propensity of people to follow up feeling unwell and the ability of GP’s and specialists to diagnose the disease (which on average can take up to ten years, from the forming of symptoms). This suggests that all gluten free markets under analysis may be very much in the ‘early adopter stage’, meaning that they are all looking for a ‘tipping point’ to turn them into ‘run-away’ growth success. This is vital for a large scale uptake in the supply of gluten free products and easy access to food for celiac.

Gluten free food group proportions

Another major concept of the GFP research is the composition of the major search phrases. With the top 50 phrases separated into seven groups, the changes in the proportions can give a good insight into how the markets are evolving. Previous research found that the leading demand developed countries tended to have a proportion profile that included a generic GF food group of around 60% and a celiac search proportion of around 20%.

The changes over 12 months for each of the leading countries shows a trend of gluten free generic searches remaining moderately stable (USA up 5%, Canada down 2%, Australia and UK unchanged). The one thing they all have in common is a significant DECREASE in ‘celiac related’ search terms. USA (-12%), Canada (-3%), Australia (-6%) and UK (-5%).

Research suggests that developing countries with very immature gluten free markets tended to have larger proportions of celiac searches due to newly diagnosed people spending a large proportion of time finding information on the disease rather than products. They also tend to have a larger proportion than developed markets for ‘GF diet’ information, and ‘wheat free’ searches.

Another article by Gluten Free Pages also looked at the long term trend of gluten free searches versus celiac searches and found that celiac searches remained relatively constant over the last five years while demand for gluten free information continued strong growth. It is likely that the increased maturity of the market (the diagnosed people no longer searching for celiac topics) and friends and family searching for gluten free foods (rather than celiac information) is behind the relative stagnation in the search volume of 'celiac related' searches. Another consideration is that celiac searches may be made more by medical professionals than consumers or diagnosed celiac.

LONG TERM DEMAND

To assist the general understanding of the market, The following graph tracks the growth of the leading search phrases for each of the seven gluten free associated groups. It is proposed that while this information is specifically for the USA market, that due to the many similarities in market dynamics for the leading gluten free countries demand patterns, that analysis of the USA may act as a proxy for the others. 

The trends for ‘celiac’ and ‘wheat free’ searches have remained steady over the last three years (little growth), while gluten free restaurants have increased dramatically in popularity since May 2008.

The four groups that have enjoyed the highest and similar growth patterns are: generic gluten free searches, gluten free recipes, gluten diet searches and specific gluten free foods. As the generic gluten free top two search terms usually comprise around 50% of the total group (for leading markets) and as the whole group comprises 60% of total gluten free associated searches, the stability of the ‘gluten free’ phrase is the most significant indicator of the likely continuing high growth of the whole market.

Gluten Free Market CONCLUSIONS

All of the top online demand countries in 2008 performed exceptionally well in the later half of 2009. The proportion of the major generic gluten free group remained relatively stable while the celiac term group fell in all markets. America grew the most in 2009 and Australia and Canada are now nearly equal second on the GFP Matrix ‘celiac searches per month’ metric.

Peak online demand levels are often found around December, so it will be interesting to see with a recovering global economy whether this extreme growth will be sustained globally into the new year of 2010.