There’s something of a diabetic epidemic taking place in the UK at the moment. The number of people diagnosed with the disease has risen by nearly 130,000 in the past year to 2.9 million, according to Diabetes UK, and there are now 50% more Britons with diabetes than when GP data on the disease was first published in 2005. The rise is mainly due to a surge in type-2 diabetes, which accounts for 90% of all cases.
Symptoms of diabetes include frequent urination, especially at night, increased thirst, extreme tiredness, unexplained weight loss, slow healing of cuts and wounds, and blurred vision. Left uncontrolled it can take between 10 and 15 years off of a person’s life expectancy.
Often the first reaction on being told you have the disease is that cutting out chocolates and biscuits and then the occasional walk or jog round the block should have the condition licked. But it’s more complicated than that, and this is where brands are missing out both on a potential new revenue stream and a valuable piece of cause related marketing.
Managing diabetes isn’t only about the refined sugar – the chocolates, biscuits and cakes. It’s about managing all sugar. That means taking care when you’re eating fruit, only eating certain fruits, avoiding most processed or ready meals and giving a wide berth to most if not all carbohydrates. White bread, pasta, potatoes, rice all turn to sugar almost as soon as they’ve been consumed. At the moment, a diabetic diet pretty much requires you to start every meal from scratch. And herein lies the opportunity.
When you next stroll around your nearest supermarket, you’ll find next to nothing available to cater for the diabetic market. There may be the odd product – though you’ll have to have the powers of a super detective to find them – but nothing that screams out “we know diabetes is a growing problem and we’re here to cash in on it.” There are plenty of products that proclaim themselves as “low fat”, though these are often high in sugar, and products which are perceived as healthy may be too high in sugar because of the inclusion of dried fruits and the like.
Contrast this, for example, with gluten. Most of the major supermarkets now have a dedicated area for products free from gluten, yet coeliac’s disease, which requires a gluten-free diet, accounts for only 150,000 people in the UK, just 5% of the people who suffer from diabetes.
And don’t restrict your thinking to just the diabetics. The change in diet required can impact on the whole family, which means although as a brand your “universe” of diabetics may be 3 million, in reality by factoring in family eating habits, it could be as much as 12 million, not far short of one fifth of the population, let alone the health conscious non-diabetics, who may just gravitate towards sugar-free products anyway.
Brands that operate across the food spectrum from yoghurt to breakfast cereals, from confectionary to cakes and biscuits all have an opportunity to open up new revenue streams by developing a range of genuinely sugar-free products. This would extend the reach of established brands, open the brands back up to people who otherwise would not be able to buy them and by linking the products with a synergistic charity like Diabetes UK the brand could tap into the established principle that consumers are more pre-disposed to ethical, socially responsible brands.
All this AND Britain’s three million diabetics could have a biscuit with their coffee again. Who could ask for anything more?
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