Last years (2009) gluten free search volumes for the top fifty terms have increased from 470K to 655K. this is a dramatic 37% increase over one year. Of the seven groups, the two major changes were that the generic gluten free group (red) increased by 50%, while the celiac / coeliac group (navy) deceased by 5%. For the main generic GF group there was an increase in terms of 7 to 9, however the two main gluten free terms still retain a 55% proportion of the total generic group. The celiac group has decreased from 7 terms to 3 terms and its volume was similar to 2008 November monthly searches with a 2009 November search total of 70,800.
The table below shows the growth rate in absolute monthly search volumes of the seven groups:
| Group | TOTAL DEC 2008 | TOTAL NOV 2009 | % Increase |
| GF Generic | 262,900 | 395,400 | 50% |
| Gluten diet | 9,080 | 17,400 | 92% |
| GF Recipe | 39,280 | 71,000 | 81% |
| Celiac / Coeliac | 74,200 | 70,800 | -5% |
| Wheat free | 16,000 | 27,600 | 73% |
| Locations | 3,780 | 4,500 | 19% |
| Specific foods | 35,380 | 68,500 | 94% |
Australian Gluten Free Search group proportions
There are now an approximately equal number of monthly searches for the three groups of ‘coeliac/ celiac’ information, gluten free recipes and the third category of GF specific foods. The GF recipe group all contained a similar mix of words with the eight phrases (containing recipe or gluten) making up 71,000 searches.
One of the more surprising results was the GF specific food group increasing its members from 16 to 19 of the top 50 terms, and its total volume from 35,380 to 68,500. While the top terms were related to bread (16,200) and GF flour (6,500) there were still a few people looking for dairy gluten free products (7,300), cakes (13,500) and chocolate (5,200).
The pattern of the main generic group remaining relatively stable in its proportion of total terms and the celiac group decreasing in value was experienced in 2009 by America, Canada and United Kingdom (UK). This effect is believed to be due to the celiac group search terms remaining relatively near zero growth (as discussed before in previous GFP coeliac market demand trend research) and most other gluten free terms experiencing high growth rates. The growth rates may be caused by an increase in diagnosis rates, or the recovery from the global financial crisis of 2008 and friends and family (non celiac, also searching for gluten free foods) due to gift giving, restaurant going with coeliac or more people finding they are gluten intolerant. Australian long term Gluten free SEARCH TRENDS
Google provides data back to 2004 on some of the larger searched terms. To give an understanding of how the general market is performing the search volumes for the single term ‘gluten free’ is analysed and used as a proxy for other associated gluten free terms (except coeliac / celiac).
The long term growth trend above shows considerable volatility at the start of 2009. To understand seasonal effects it is better to graph the search volume demand on a normalised plot, shown below. As the top 50 rated terms increased nearly 40% it is expected that this individual ‘gluten free’ term would show a good increase, and it does. The linear trend growth rate for ‘gluten free’ in 2008 was 16% while in 2009 it was 38%.
The graph below shows that when the last five years of data are normalised, that all years have a tendency to have a peak in July (mid winter) and also in December (Christmas effect). The main difference with 2009 is that the winter peak was much more accentuated and that while it also went through a September to November trough, its December peak value is 15% higher than where 2007 and 2008 finished in December.
CONCLUSION
Australian gluten free online demand has had its strongest growth of the last five years. However this growth has been much less than America or Canada. It will be interesting to see if the particularly strong growth over the end of 2009 will be continued in 2010.
