Organic Foods - The next Big thing
Saturday, May 5, 2007
Organic food sales have grown at an annual pace of about 20 percent between 1997 and 2005, the most recent data available, according to the Organic Trade Association, a trade group counting growers, distributors and retailers among its nearly 1,600 members.
Organic foods totaled $13.8 billion in 2005 sales, or 2.5 percent of U.S. food sales, the association reported. That's up from $3.6 billion, 0.8 percent of all sales, in 1997.
Perhaps more significantly, 2005 marked the first year organic sales at traditional independent outlets, such as Pinecrest, fell below 25 percent of organic food sales, Organic Trade data show.
The independents accounted for almost $3.3 billion in sales that year compared to chain supermarkets and other mass merchandisers, such as convenience stores and club stores, at $6.3 billion and natural food chains, such as Whole Foods Market and Wild Oats, at $3.3 billion, the data show.
A December 2005 national survey by the Hartman Group, a San Francisco marketing research firm specializing on health and wellness issues, found that 73 percent of respondents reported buying an organic product occasionally.
Among those organic buyers, Hartman put 21 percent in the "core group" of people who buy organics whenever possible, 66 percent into the mid-level group that buy regularly but less frequently and 13 percent as "peripheral" buyers.
As the organic market has widened, the demographic differences between organic and mainstream food shoppers have disappeared, said Laurie Demeritt, president of the Hartman Group.
A decade ago, organic buyers tended to have higher income and education levels, Demeritt said, but that's no longer the case. Neither can organic buyers be restricted to an age group.
"Organic has nothing to do with age. It's about lifestyle and perception of health benefits," she said.
Labels: Ideas
