Recent Growth Patterns in the U.S. Organic Foods Market
According to the Nutrition Business Journal (NBJ), consumer sales of organic food reached $8.5 billion in 2002, or 1.6% of the country’s total retail food bill of $538 billion. Organic food sales rose 20% compared to 3 to 4% for all food in 2002, continuing double-digit growth sustained over the last 10 years. NBJ predicts average annual growth of 16% for organic food from 2003-2007.
Organic food products are now available in leading natural and organic products retailers, supermarket chains, mass-merchant retailers and other specialty food retailers across the U.S.
Natural product sales in the United States grew 6.9 percent across all retail and direct-to-consumer sales channels in 2004, reaching $45.8 billion in total sales. Of the $2.96 billion in incremental sales added in 2004, 52 percent were sourced from natural product retailers, who represent 48 percent of the total natural product sales of $45.8 billion.
Natural product retailers also outpaced other channels with 7.5 percent sales growth. Mass-market sales grew 6.7 percent; direct-to-consumer sales rose 5.7 percent.
Whole Foods Market once again led all “supernaturals” with growth of 23 percent and sales of $4.1 billion. Second to Whole Foods in the natural products retail market, Wild Oats Markets had 2004 growth of 8.1 percent on $1.05 billion in sales, much improved over 2003, when the retailer saw 4.7 percent growth and $970 million in sales.
Bright spots for natural product retailers were sales of fresh meat and seafood, which grew 17.6 percent overall and 44 percent in organics, and bakery, which saw 17.1 percent total growth and 35 percent growth in organics.
The Natural Marketing Institute (NMI) has published its 2005 Organic Consumer Trends ReportTM (OCTR) which indicates that 2004 organic food and beverage sales were $10.9 billion, an increase of 18% versus 2003. The study reports that approximately 30% of U.S. consumers (or 62 million households) use organic products, down from a high of 40% in 2003.