Gluten Free Global Demand America US, Australia, Canada, United Kingdom (UK)
Extensive original research and analysis has been performed on the global state of online demand for gluten free associated products at the end of 2008 and through 2009. This research primarily uses the Google data sets. One of the primary concepts was defined as ‘Celiac searches per month’. The definition of this value is described at the end of this article. In short, 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 for a gluten free associated terms each month. As Google tends not to adjust monthly search volumes every month in its data sets, the top 200 summed volumes are somewhat smoothed already as raw data – meaning that to analyse the whole market picking the particular month to obtain the data may not be vital. Individual term trend data can also be used to understand the seasonal nature of the market in general. The graph below shows how four of the main countries online demand for gluten free information has increased over one calendar year from Nov 2008 to Nov 2009. Graph metrics: · X axis = Celiac Searches per month · Y axis = raw searches / population · Sphere size represents relative search volumes.  | COUNTRY | Celiac Searches / mth | Raw searches / popn | ADJ Search volumes | | Aust 08 | 4.2 | 0.0218 | 911,494 | | US Eng 08 | 3.1 | 0.0123 | 8,288,917 | | Canada Eng 08 | 3.7 | 0.0162 | 1,125,893 | | UK 08 | 2.2 | 0.0135 | 1,363,949 | | | | | | | Aust 09 | 4.8 | 0.0328 | 1,018,681 | | US Eng 09 | 5.5 | 0.0293 | 16,959,812 | | Canada Eng 09 | 4.8 | 0.0298 | 1,616,217 | | UK 09 | 3.3 | 0.0224 | 2,035,719 |
What the celiac search values mean The size of the sphere is relative to the searches per month in a country. And so the volume of the sphere indicates a good indication of whether total online demand is increasing, which it is in every case as shown in the table above. They Y axis represents ‘raw searches per population per month’. The major reasons that will increase a country’s sphere up this axis is an increase in the number of diagnosed celiac (more people searching) or an increase in gluten intolerant people searching for information. The X axis represents the ‘celiac searches per month’. For 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 optimisation 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, 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 celiacs 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 celiacs. Gluten free food group proportions The following graph compares the ratio of the seven gluten free groups in the Four major countries for November 2008 and 2009.  The following table provides more statistics on the ratios | GROUP | USA 08 | USA 09 | Canada 08 | Canada 09 | AUST 08 | AUST 09 | UK 08 | UK 09 | | GF Generic | 59% | 64% | 58% | 56% | 60% | 60% | 46% | 46% | | Gluten Diet | 4% | 4% | 2% | 4% | 2% | 3% | 3% | 4% | | GF recipe | 6% | 9% | 8% | 10% | 9% | 11% | 7% | 10% | | Celiac | 20% | 8% | 19% | 16% | 17% | 11% | 24% | 19% | | Wheat Free | 4% | 4% | 4% | 4% | 4% | 4% | 12% | 12% | | Locations | 1% | 1% | 1% | 1% | 1% | 1% | 1% | 1% | | GF Specific Foods | 7% | 9% | 7% | 7% | 8% | 10% | 7% | 8% |
Another major concept of the GFP research is the composition of the major search phrases. With the top 50 phrases separated into the seven groups shown in the table, 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 (red) of around 60% and a celiac search proportion (navy) 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%). Previous research suggested 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 celiacs. LONG TERM DEMAND The proportion graphs and table earlier in this report represent the search volumes of the top 50 gluten free associated phrases. These graphs give a good snap shot of a point in time, and due to the lag in the reporting system they may represent several months average, however they do not indicate the general trend of any particular group. For this purpose Google provides trend data for individual phrases, however graphing 50 phrases would not provide useful information. 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 graphs shows that ‘celiac’ and ‘wheat free’ searches have remained steady over the last three years, 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 (red line) 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 group fell in all markets. America grew the most in 2009 and Australia and Canada are now nearly equal 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. Celiac searches per month’ DEFINITION One of the primary concepts was defined as ‘Celiac searches per month’ = [ raw Google searches x ( 1 / Google market share %) x ( 1 / Internet penetration %) ] / (population / 100) Where raw Google searches = the sum of up to top 200 ‘Gluten free’ associated search term volumes per month. Population is divided by 100 upon the predicate that approximately 1% of the population may be celiac. Whether it is more or less in any country under analysis is a mute point since the level of diagnosis is not accounted for either. While Australian and UK sources confirm the celiac rate is likely to be 1%, some American sites suggest that it is between 1 in 100 and 1 in 133. This rate would only decrease if the ethnic composition of a country was not susceptible to the celiac causing genes. At the moment celiac disease is considered extremely rare ONLY in people of pure African, Chinese, or Japanese descent. This is because the prevalence of the HLA haplotypes DQ2 and DQ8 is negligible (celiac genes) in these communities. It is noted that races such as African Americans however have recently found to be susceptible to celiac disease. For all the conflicting available information and the affects of marketing increasing celiac diagnosis, this GFP concept provides a good measure to track and compare markets. It is noted that ‘gluten intolerance’ people (which boost gluten free searches beyond those of celiacs), will also alter the equation, so with all the positive and negative influences, the constant for the celiac rate will remain at 1 in 100 for the four countries under analysis. If you would like to comment about this article, please send us feedback. To see other articles on Gluten Free isues, please look in our Original Articles Index. |
