The troubled U.S. economy may be taking a toll on the growth of organic product sales, according to new data from Nielsen.
After several years of 20% to 30% sales growth, U.S. sales of organic products are showing the first signs of slowing.
While 52-week dollar sales of UPC-coded organics are up 21% vs. last year, the most recent four-week period ending October 4, 2008, shows growth of only 11.2%. Last year, organics saw 27.1% sales growth during the comparable four-week period ending October 6, 2007.
Meanwhile, in Great Britain, organics sales growth has also slowed — to just 4%, year over year, for the most recent year, ending September 6, 2008. In comparison, during the year ending September 8, 2007, organic products saw 18% sales growth in Britain.
Organic products are clearly here to stay, but the days of boundless growth may be over.
Read coverage of Nielsen’s findings in The New York Times.
Interestingly, organic sales in Great Britain are actually in decline (-5%) for the 4 weeks to September 6, 2008, and MAT growth, to the same date, is now as low as +4%, vs +18% for the previous MAT.
Hrmmm.
Have been in the Homescan Shopping survey now almost a decade and our own household’s recent *apparent* decline in organic products is less due to not purchasing, but more to the fact that we have discovered the SLO-food (sustainable, LOCAL, organic) movement.
It’s better produce and products with NO externalized or hidden costs.
Of course, now that we ARE buying more locally grown produce and products, much of it handmade and minimally processed, it has NO bar codes to scan!
Sure there are those cutting back on the organics, but in our home, this is not the case – it just looks that way from the data we no longer can send.
Deb.
[...] organic growth maturing, it’s timely indeed that two of the biggest names in their respective areas of expertise have [...]
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