Gluten Free Comparison: AUST, USA, CANADA, MEXICO, BRAZIL

When analysing gluten free markets, the main question that people with celiac disease will ask is "what's in it for me"? Having an understanding of markets such as Australia and America is fundamental to understanding how many more suppliers are likely to enter the market and so drive competition and choice. If you are celiac or a gluten free supplier, these are two words that you hold dear to your heart: choice and low price. To understand how close we are to a mature market (when maximum competition drives prices down) it is useful to compare our country with other communities.

This analysis is based on Google search terms (for the month Dec 08) used in the gluten free market. As Google usually has a large market share in most countries and also has specific country domains, this provides a perfect baseline to compare gluten free markets across the world.

This article is set out in the following format:

• Identification Of the Four Gluten Free Market Tiers
• Introduction Comparison Of Communities By Their Market Tiers
• FULL ANALYSIS PER COMMUNITY
• Statistic Tables for each community

Identification Of the Four Gluten Free Market Tiers

So far four market levels (TIERS) have been identified.

A fully matured gluten free market has not been reached yet due to the low diagnosis of celiac disease even in developed countries. So far, analysis has shown that the most developed gf markets are those in Australia, the US and Canada. Characteristics of the e-demand side of these are a high number of search terms and high search volumes.

Of the search terms used in tier 1 communities, they are typically dominated by generic gluten free terms where the first 2 to 3 terms represent over 55% of the top 50 searches. This is the case in Australia, US (English speaking) and Canada (English). It is speculated that in these countries there are a significant number of celiacs who have been diagnosed for a few years. They originally searched for information on the disease and diets required and now prefer to spend more time searching for generic gluten free terms. By doing so they have found that on the supply side of things products have been amassed in the one place. This means that by searching on generic terms they can easily find large gluten free sites that contain many gluten free products on which they can search internally for specific terms. While generic searches are large, searches on the celiac group are still the second highest and account for over 15% of the top 50 searches. Within this group two terms ‘celiac' and ‘celiac disease' typically account for over 85% of all searches.

The next level of market maturity (tier 2) is shown by communities like US Spanish speaking and Canadian French speaking communities. These communities are often smaller than the dominant communities (often English) in their countries but they have first world affluence available to them. They often have under 100 total search terms over a twelve month average. In this example, US Spanish has 17 search terms and Canadian French have 30. The relatively high level of affluence within these communities increases the individual's chances of being diagnosed and pursuing a often more difficult and costly gluten free diet (as compared with tier 4 markets. These ‘second tier' communities also have a high search proportion devoted to generic gluten free terms but there is also a higher proportion of searches (than found in tier 1 markets) devoted to finding information on celiac disease such as through celiac diet and/or wheat allergy searches.

The third market maturity (tier 3) is shown by communities such as Mexican English speaking (101 searches) and Brazilian English speaking (100 searches) communities. These communities are much smaller proportions of the country population than tier 2 markets. They are often much more affluent than the main population ethnicity (through education/ employment) or having come from more affluent countries such as America. They tend to not search so much for generic gluten free terms (less than 45%) but have an increase in searches for celiac diet searches and specific food groups. This pattern is indicative of newly diagnosed people (having access to good medical attention). The other main trait of this market is that it includes people who have had the disease for a while and are now seeking specialist gluten free products such as ‘gluten free restaurants' or ‘desserts' - rather than staple gluten free foods such as flour or breads.

The lowest developed market (tier 4) is reflected by searches in Mexico (Spanish Speaking) 24 total searches and Brazil (Portuguese speaking) 23 searches. The communities also tend to have very low searches per head of population and may not have access to good medical facilities - often a large rural population. These people have a relatively small proportion of generic searches and a much higher number of ‘wheat free' and ‘celiac' searches. While they also have higher search volumes for specialty gluten free foods, rather than bread searches (main specialty in refined markets) or desserts, they tend to search for even more fundamental food staples such as flour and oatmeal. Counter intuitively they also tend to search for cakes and cookies. This is not necessarily related to the countries affluence but is more likely a social phenomenon where providing good food spreads for parties and extended family gatherings account for a large part of their social interaction.

INTRODUCTION 

Higher choice and lower prices will likely occur in tier 1 market countries as more celiacs are diagnosed and search for and buy more products. The development will reach maturity once the growth of the market goes through a point of inflexion in its growth and begins to plateau. Only long term monitoring of this demand can assess where that level of maturity approaches saturation.

The development of the market level definitions (tier structure) will be refined as more countries are analysed.

A practical application of this analysis for celiacs is to see what other celiacs are searching for and how developed the gluten free market is in their own countries. This article attempts to answer the question "what are the characteristics of a mature gluten free market".

This research and analysis was undertaken to see if there is a correlation between gluten free search profiles of developed nations and how this may differ from countries in close proximity to the US.

A previous article in this section showed a very strong correlation between gluten free search profiles of Australia and the US. In the article you are now reading, analysis was refined to include the affect of languages, internet usage, Google market share etc. Where countries use several languages, analysis was performed on English searches and the other local language.

This research was undertaken on December 2008 Google search volumes for Gluten free products and uses monthly averages over a year in countries where search volatility is high and / or search volumes low. The analysis again shows a very strong correlation between the Australian and US Gluten free markets.

One of the first indictors or market maturity is considered to be the number of ‘gluten free' related internet searches per ‘population divided by 100'. This takes into consideration that approximately 1 in 100 people (diagnosed and undiagnosed) may be celiac. The search volumes below are for Google searches associated with gluten free products for the month of December 2008.

The Adjusted GF Searches per month per celiac column takes into consideration internet usage, Google market share. The values are most accurate for the first three countries, ‘developed' nations. These countries have a long established internet usage and Google was able to provide search terms up to its self imposed limit of 200 terms. The search values for Mexico and Brazil English speaking are likely to be inflated due to sparse information on the penetration of English language in these countries and Google's translation abilities.

The most important concept in this research is the gluten free grouping profiles. As explained below, all gluten free terms were assigned to one of seven groups. The top 50 search terms were sorted into these groups and groups were analysed for number of terms, proportion of the top 50 and the specific terms within each group. While the following pages go into the details of each country a summary of the analysis is:

Group Composition:

The following shows some of the representative terms in each group.

Generic GF Product: This group of search terms all involve the word gluten and are generic in nature, such a gluten, gluten free, gluten free products, gluten free meals.

Gluten Diet: These are terms that are related to the specifics of gluten free diets such as: gluten free diets, celiac diet.

Gluten Free recipe: Terms such as gluten free recipes, gluten recipe, gluten free baking, wheat free baking

Celiac related: These are terms related to information on the disease such as: celiac disease, gluten intolerance, gluten allergies

Wheat free: Terms such as: wheat free, wheat gluten, wheat allergy

Locations: gluten free stores, gluten free shopping, gluten free restaurant

GF Specific Foods: gluten free bread, gluten free pizza, gluten free cakes, gluten free muffins

COMPARISON of Communities by their Market Tiers

Australia, US English, Canada English.

Australian, US English speaking and Canadian English groups had very similar profiles. Each country had the ‘generic gluten free' group as its main group with the following volume proportions: AUS 65%, US Eng 64%, Canadian Eng 63%. In each case the same ‘gluten and gluten free' generic terms rated as the top two overall searched terms by volume.

The celiac group was the second largest volume searched by all three countries: AUS (18%), US Eng (21%), Canada Eng (21%). Each category was dominated by over 85% by the terms ‘celiac' and ‘celiac disease'. Dual spellings in Australia.

US Spanish, Canadian French

The graphs show that these communities are similar to the three above, at least in the proportion of the generic ‘gluten free products' group.

One of the main things that affects the distribution profile of these communities is that US Spanish searches only comprised a total of 19 terms compared to US English that was capped by Google at 200. Per population of the American English V Spanish community, the English speaking community performed 4.2 times as many gluten free product searches as US Spanish speaking people on Google.

For the US Spanish community, the ‘celiac' group was the highest volume proportion of any of the countries analysed. While the US and Australia searched for generic ‘celiac' terms in this group the US Spanish search for ‘celiac allergies'. This suggests a possible different approach to the way each country views celiac disease.

Compared to the US English, these communities also have a stronger interest in wheat issues. While the US English searched for 3 terms in this group it only made up 4% of volumes. The US Spanish searched for only one term: ‘wheat intolerance' and it made up 18% of total search volumes. These factors suggest the US Spanish searchers are new to celiac disease and the market is immature compared to the first three countries.

The Canadian French speaking community had a similar profile to Canadian English but a much higher interest in the ‘gluten diet' group and slightly higher interest in GF specific foods. These terms are accounted for by them looking at the specifics of what they can eat, and specific foods of gluten free ‘oatmeal' and ‘quinoa'. The higher interest in the diet group suggests that they are either more specialised in their searches than their English counterparts or are earlier in the disease diagnosis stage.

Mexican English / Brazilian English

In each community English is a very small minority of the population but is massively over represented in search volumes. As Google has country specific domains in each countries main language this statistic suggest that these English communities are more aware of gluten issues, are more affluent, and potentially represent a more mature search market.

There is a strong similarity between the Mexican English and Brazil English speaking group profiles. Both communities have a significantly reduced generic search focus but a similar increases in GF specific foods and Gluten Diet information. Quite a few of the English speaking people in these countries are believed to either be affluent locals or foreigners (ex pat US).

In the Mexican English speaking community, the highest searched group is ‘gf locations' and the highest volume terms are related to gluten free restaurants. The second highest group ‘celiac' is dominated by several equally search volume terms that use three and four word search strings. The third group ‘gf specific foods' is dominated by searches for desserts. This suggests a split in focus between people newly diagnosed and those who are affluent enough to regularly search for gluten free restaurants and desserts.

In the ‘Brazil English' community there was an even stronger fascination with gluten free desserts taking up three individual search terms - the first two accounting for 9% of all searches. Coelaic (UK spelling) was the second most searched group and it contained only one term which accounted for 24% of search volumes. The highest specific food searches were for cakes and muffins, whereas in US English and Australia top specific searches were for breads.

Mexican Spanish, Brazil Portuguese.

The profiles for these communities were the most unlike the US English and Australian. The table at the beginning of this article also shows that in raw terms they had one tenth the searches per head.

Mexican Spanish differs from market 1 profiles as much by its large reduction in generic searches as its large increase in searches on wheat issues. In fact three of the top ‘wheat free' searches accounted for 44% of top 50 volumes. This suggests a community in early stages of diagnosis and discovery. The two highest specific gf food searches were for ‘oatmeal' and ‘flour'. These non luxury items, low search volumes and focus on wheat free issues suggests a non affluent community searching for fixes to staple food groups.

Brazil Portuguese has a very large population but low search volumes. In fact it has nine times the population of Australia, but less than half the searches on gluten free products. While generic gluten searches were the main search group at 44% (20% less than US and AUS), its first two terms were still the same generic terms. Of most interest is that this community has the highest specific food group volume proportion of all countries. And rather than an interest in food staples, they focus on gluten free cakes (18% of top 50 searches), and cookies 10%. They also search for gluten free flour (3%) and oatmeal (2%).

With the third highest group being ‘wheat free' and gluten allergies Brazil's market resembles the split shown in Mexico (English) between learning about celiac disease and enjoying treats. However rather than searching on restaurants, the Brazilian Portuguese interest in cakes may be seen as a cultural choice (socialising and providing family spreads) rather than an opulent choice.

The graph below shows the relationship between a tier 1 community (place that is nearing market maturity) AND a high proportion that its top two searches take up of the top 50 searches AND a high number of searches per (population / 100). The only community that seems to lie outside of this trend is tier two community Canadian - French speaking. This data may incur some inflation because over one year only 30 search terms were recorded, and many French speaking people may search in English.

FULL ANALYSIS PER COMMUNITY

The stage of the gluten free market (maturity) is an important factor for consumers and suppliers. It affects choice, the level of competition, prices etc.

There are several ways of estimating the peak of a market. The main economic models use forecast models such as the ‘Bass model of diffusion'. But these models are often more useful when a single product is launched, rather than estimating an entire emerging market. Also the underlying data used in many other market estimations is often hidden, dated or combined so that all trends can not be easily seen. Using a ubiquitous source such as Google's ‘e demand' gives real time easily accessible information to baseline analysis between countries.

As the total estimate of celiacs (diagnosed and undiagnosed) is nominally 1 in 100, even when this market becomes mature, it is likely that people will still search for gluten free products online because relative to other food groups at market saturation, the market will still remain niche.

In a previous paper on www.glutenfreepages.com.au, gluten free American and Australian markets were compared for November 2008 and it was found that there was a VERY strong correlation between the demand characteristics of the two very separated places. The main difference being that Australia had a rating of 1.6 searches per celiac per month for, while the US had 1.0. These values did not account internet usage or Google market share and have been refined in this article. This article shows that by taking these factors into consideration the ‘real' number of searches per celiac (diagnosed and undiagnosed) is more likely to be Australia 3.0, US 2.9 searches per month. As the level of undiagnosed celiacs is believed to be quite high, it is possible that the current level of searches by diagnosed celiacs is actually triple or more these values.

This article compares the Australian and US markets to the nearest US neighbours to see if there is a locality affect or spill over in how communities search for gluten free products. It also answers questions such as how does the development stage of a country or county size affect the demand for gluten free products. 

The raw data used is based on Google search volumes for keywords of searchers. To normalise the data, the raw data is weighted to account for the likely total searches across all browsers. That is, Google's country market share is used to estimate 100% of searches for all search engines. 

Where countries have more than one main language, Google statistics were used for both English and the other dominant language. The first country analysed is the US. This is because they are believed to have the most advanced celiac detection procedures and largest supply networks.

USA English

The total number of searches was found to be 7.9M (adjusted) or 2.9 searches per English (mainly) speaking celiac.

A comparison of the % of the top 50 terms versus the % of top 50 searches shows that the ‘Gluten free products' group takes up 64% of the top 50 searches but accounts for only 18% of the terms. This shows that in the US (English Speaking) people are very interested in finding sites that contain all things gluten free in one place. That is they are searching for generic terms to locate food to purchase rather than specific food, or locations (malls, restaurants or specific food groups (gluten free chocolate, biscuits etc). In fact the top two search terms in the generic gluten free products group account for 2.2M of the 3.6 M terms (raw data) or 61% of all terms searched!

The second highest category was the ‘Celiac Group'. This group comprises only 12% (6) of the terms yet makes up 21% of the top 50 searches. Even more remarkable is that the top two terms in this group are rank 3rd and 4th overall and account for 19% of all search terms (out of 200). This shows that there is a strong interest in the medical issues associated with the disease.

The first two groups account for 85% of the top 50 terms AND the first four terms account for 80% of ALL terms searched in the top 200!

The third highest group is the specific gluten free products group. While it contains 34% of terms in the top 50, it only accounts for 7% of the top 50 search volumes. The two largest terms involve ‘bread' and make up 90,000 searches, which is 32% of the group. This shows that apart from general gluten free searches, good quality gluten free bread is a major issue for Americans.

The ‘Gluten Free recipes' group is the fourth highest group taking up 14% of terms but only 6% of volumes. The top four terms in this group range between 60,000 and 40,000 searches. This relatively low number, along with low number of ‘specific gluten free products' searches suggests that in general Americans are used to searching for and buying pre-made gluten free food, rather than making gluten free meals at home (such as searching for recipes).  

USA Spanish 

Research shows that 10.7% of the US population primarily speaks Spanish, and English and Spanish comprise 93% of the main languages spoken in the US.

While many Spanish speaking US citizens may also speak English, Google provides raw data on gluten free terms searched for in Spanish as well as English. It is informative to compare the US English and US Spanish speaking (and searching) habits to see the difference in these markets.

The adjusted search volumes for this community are only 243,000 per month which equate to only 0.7 searches per month per Spanish speaking celiac. Factors that are likely have this value so much lower than the US English speaking population are:

Spanish speaking people may have a lower rate of celiac disease Spanish speaking may have a lower rate of diagnosis of the disease Socio economic factors such as lower internet usage Spanish speaking people may still search for gluten free products in English.

Like English speaking citizens, they have the same two top search groups and in the same order. However the first group; generic ‘gluten free products', accounts for 29% of terms and only 49% of search volumes in the top 50 terms (compared with US English 64%). The group has the first and fourth highest search term which combined account for 38% of search volumes.

The second highest group is the Celiac Group that has 24% of terms and 33% of the search volumes. The top two terms are ranked second and sixth and are both based on gluten allergies.

Only two other groups have any relative significance. The ‘wheat free' group accounts for 18% of search volumes while GF specific foods account for 13% of top 19 search volumes.

While the total number of search terms (19) and search volume are much lower than US English, three of the first six terms are focused on allergies and intolerance. This suggests that the group searching in Spanish may be very new to the celiac concept and trying to gain medical information about the matter rather than shop for products.

AUSTRALIAN

As Australia's population is predominantly English speaking only Australian English speaking search analysis is required.

The raw monthly search volume was 470K searches, and the adjusted volume is 654K. Using a celiac rate of 1 in 100 people this is equivalent to 3.0 searches per celiac per month.

The largest group is ‘generic gluten free products' which accounts for 14% of the top 50 terms but 65% of search volumes. The top two search terms in this group are also the top two of ALL search terms and account for 52% of all (top 200) search volumes.

The second most popular search group was the ‘celiac group'. Comprised of 14% of terms, they comprise 18% of top 50 search volumes. The top three terms in this group take up the third, fourth and fifth highest overall search volumes.

The third most search group is ‘gluten free recipes' that comprise 18% of terms but only 10% of volumes. The top three terms come in at volume positions six, eight and nine.

The fourth group closely follows the third group with ‘specific GF foods' taking up 32% of terms but only 9% of volumes. Their first three are 12, 13 and 14th and concentrate on breads and cakes with volumes near 5,000 per month.

The most amazing thing about these statistics is how closely the groups mirror the US English Group percentages. Similarities are:

• Both have a search per celiac value of near 3.0 searches per month
• The top search group for each is the generic group (US 64%, AUS 65%)
• The top two generic gluten search terms are the same for each group.
• The second group for both countries is celiac (US 21%, AUS 18%)
• Third and fourth groups are nearly equal and combined account for 13% US and 19% AUS of top 50 search volumes.

 CANADA

The 2001 Canadian census stated that "nine out of 10 people in Canada still speak either the English or French languages at home. And 59.1 percent of the population report their mother tongue as English, while 22.9 percent report their language as French. As the next nearest language was Chinese (3%). The analysis will be on Google English and Google French with their respective percentages scaled up to combine to 100%

CANADIAN English

The raw monthly search volume was 527K searches, and the adjusted volume is 962K. Using a celiac rate of 1 in 100 people this is equivalent to 4.0 searches per celiac per month, the highest found so far for mature tier 1 markets.

The Canadian English speaking gluten free group search volume profile is again very closely aligned to the Australian and the US English profiles.

The top group was the generic gluten free product group with 24% of searches and 63% of the top 50 searches. The top two terms for this group are the overall top two and the same terms as for USA English and Australia.

The second most searched group was the ‘celiac group' which had 12% of the terms and 21% of the search volumes. The first two terms in this group appeared as the third and fourth overall terms and were also the same as for the US English searches.

Like the US and AUST ‘gluten free bread' related terms were the most specific food searched.

CANADIAN French

Google only listed 30 gluten free associated terms for Canadian French. The raw monthly search volume was also very low at 17K searches, and the adjusted volume is 32K. Using a celiac rate of 1 in 100 people this is equivalent to only 0.3 searches per celiac per month.

This is the second non-English community to be analysed and curiously, unlike US Spanish, the French Canadian gluten free profile is very similar to the US English and Australian, at least regarding the highest volume group. The ‘generic gluten free group' had 20% of the terms, 60% of the total search volumes, and the same two total top terms as for Australia and US English.

The major difference in profiles is that the celiac group was very low at 4% of volumes and the two second highest groups were GF specific foods (18%) and ‘Gluten diet' terms (17%). As the search volumes for each term in the second and third top group were so low (mostly less than under 100 searches) statistically they are of little value.

However it is noted that the top specific food search was ‘oatmeal' and ‘quinoa' rather than ‘bread'. The significance of a high volume search terms in the ‘gluten diet' group is that it is similar to the ‘celiac group'. That is, these terms are usually searched at the beginning of a celiac's journey when the are trying to identify what foods they can eat, rather than pro-actively selecting a specific gluten free product.

MEXICO

If a proximity effect is responsible for the profiles in Canada being similar to the US English, then similar results (profile shape) should be expected for Mexico. The population of Mexico is 106,682,500 and the main language is Spanish, ( 97%). Approximately 7.1% of the population speaks an indigenous language and 1.2% do not speak Spanish. However the indigenous language is most prominent in rural areas which may not have internet access. "English is widely used in business at the border cities, as well as by the one million U.S. citizens that live in Mexico, mostly retirees in small towns. Other main languages are Venetian, Plautdietsch, German, French and Romani." (wikipedia)

MEXICAN Spanish

The Google searches are so volatile that twelve month averages have to be used for total search volumes. Like French Canada, search volumes are very low for the whole gluten free market in this community, with the 12 month aveage only showing 24 terms, with total monthly search volumes of 44K (13K for DEC 08).

Because of the communities low internet usage, the adjusted search volumes are equivalent to 271K, which equates to 0.3 searches for Spanish speaking celiacs per month - the same as for French Canada.

In this community the ‘wheat free' group has the highest volume, with its 3 terms accounting for 44% of the top 50 volumes. The highest term ‘wheat intollerance' at 18,100 searches is twice as high as the second highest term. This is a medical term suggesting people in the early stages of diagnosis.

The second highest group is the ‘generic gluten free' group whose 5 terms account for 30% of the top 50 searches. The top two terms in this group are the same as for US English and Australia.

The next three groups have between 11% and 17% of searches each. The two highest specific foods searched were gluten free ‘oatmeal' and ‘flour' whereas in the US and Australia they are ‘bread' releated - a finished product.

MEXICAN English

Similar to the Mexican Spanish speaking community, this community's search volatility means that monthly volumes over a year are used for analysis. The 101 gluten terms equated to 145K searches. With only a 3% english speaking population, this increases the total adjusted search engine searches to 258K which would result in 8.1 searches per ‘english speaking' mexican per month. This is much higher than expected but is most likely due to a large number of Spanish speaking people searching for gluten free products in English.

For the first time in this analysis ‘gluten free locations' is the highest volume searched group (4 terms account for 29% of top 50 volumes). The two highest serch terms on Google in Mexico in English are related to ‘gluten free restaurants'. These two terms account for 32,100 of all searches or 22% of all searches (out of 101 terms).

The second highest group is the ‘gluten diet' group whose ten terms (out of the first 50) account for 24% of top search volumes. Surprisingly the average search volume of this group is relatively high (over 3,000) and most of the ten terms are not the simple ones used in the US or Australia, but are four word search strings such as "gluten casein free diet" AND "gluten free product list".

The third highest group is the generic gluten free products group that has 13 members accounting for 26% of terms, and 20% of search volumes in the top 50. Again the first two highest terms in this group are not the usual terms but are based on ‘gluten free desserts'.

The top three groups suggest several things. The high rate of seaches for restaurants and desserts suggest that the searchers have a high interest in dining out and obtaining non staple foods - desserts. At the opposite end of the spectrum the second highest group regards ‘gluten diet' which suggests a high level of newly diagnosed celiacs. This group is potentially newly diagnosed and affluent (compared to Spanish speaking Mexicans).

BRAZIL  

Brazil analysis is performed on Portugeue and English searches. It is noted that South America is undergoing a turf war between search engine companies and Brazil has experienced unprecedented growth in internet usage in the last few years. In 2000 usage was estimated at 2.9%, 2006 it was 17.2% and by July 2008 it was 35.2%. 

"Portuguese is the official language of Brazil. It is spoken by nearly the entire population and is virtually the only language used in newspapers, radio, television, and for all business and administrative purposes" "Minority languages are spoken throughout the vast national territory. Some of these are spoken by indigenous peoples: 180 Amerindian languages are spoken in remote areas. Others are spoken by immigrants and their descendants. There are important communities of speakers of German (mostly the Hunsrückisch, part of the High German languages) and Italian (mostly the Talian dialect, of Venetian origin) in the south of the country, both largely influenced by the Portuguese language." English is part of the official high school curriculum, but just a minority achieve any usable degree of fluency. Spanish is also part of the curriculum and is understood to various degrees by most Brazilians, due to the similarities of the languages." (Wikipedia).

BRAZIL Portuguese

Being the fifth largest country and tenth largest economy in the world it might be expected that Brazil would have a sizeable gluten free market. However being strongly South American with English a low priority and internet usage only 35% ... it is likekly that diagnosis and search rates would be low.

Local search engine presence is strong in Brazil however Google strategy of deploying local country searsch sites and the propensity of locals to also use their main site gives Google a market share of 35%.

The Brazil Portuguese seachers used 23 terms with a volume of 118K. Adjusting for internet usage and Google market share sugguests they have an average of 0.5 gluten free searches per coeliac.

Interestingly even with this low count, the profile aligns somewhat with US English and Australia - at least in the primarly search group. In ‘generic gluten free' contains 26% of the terms and 41% of the searches. The main term ‘gluten' had 40,500 searches accounting for 34% of top 23 searches.

The second highest group was specific GF foods at 34%. The highest term here was ‘gluten free cakes' with 22,200 searches, which was twice the volume of the next nearest term ‘ gluten free cookies'.

The third group was ‘wheat free' with only 15% of the volumes. Wheat intollerance' was the commanding term with 18,000 searches.

With the relatively low level of generic searches and high search on cakes, cookies then wheat intollerance and gluten allergies, Brazil's market is similar to the split interests of the Mexican English community.

BRAZIL English

While official statistics suggest that Portuguese, native and European (non english) languages are mainly spoken, there were 100 search terms performed over the last year with a search volume of 101K. To account for this high level of search usage compared with the exclusively Portuguese speaking community a value of 10% english searchers was used in calculations. This value yields a monthly English speaking coeliac search value of 4.3 searches per month.

Again the ‘generic gluten free' group was the leading group but its 16 of the top 50 terms only accounted for 39% of the volumes. Also unlike US English and Australia, its top three terms were associated with desserts, pantry and breakfast terms. Also the top two terms in this group only accounted for 9% of the top 50.

The second highest group was ‘coeliac' with its 13 terms comprising 24% of the volumes. While the group contained the top term of all seaches ‘coeliacs' (UK Spelling) it was only 8,100 searches.

The third (‘gf specific' foods - 5 terms) and fourth (‘gluten diet' - 7 terms) groups contained 22% and 19% of search volumes respectively. The top three ‘gluten diet' terms used three four and five words in the search string, rather than single or double words which are used in the US and Australian search terms in this group. The two main terms used in specific foods were cakes and muffins.

The volume distribution of Brazil English speaking was relatively flat with a high prevalence of luxury items such as desserts, cakes and muffins. Again this was contrasted with the coeliac and gluten diet groups suggesting that there is a mix of mature coeliac searchers and a relatively high number of newly diagnosed people.

Statistic Tables

The following tables summarise the main statistics of each community by the seven groups they are segmented into. STD DEV or standard deviation measurements can not strictly be used with these types of distibution but they do give an indication of the spread of the search data.

AUSTRALIA

US English Speaking 

 US Spanish Speaking

 Canadian English Speaking