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Prospects of the Organic Market

A decade of growth

As the Institute of Food Science & Technology summarised, the organic food market is "small, but growing."

Growing, in fact, at some rate. Over the last 10 years, sales of organic food in the UK have increased ten-fold, from just over £100 million in 1993/94 to £1.12 billion in 2003/04. During 2003/04, organic sales grew by 10.2%, at almost £2 million a week.

Organic food now accounts for 1.2% of the British food retail market.

Boomtime for the organic food market came at the turn of the Millennium, where sales amounted to £802 million, up by 33% on the 1999 total. The market has never looked back since - and looks set to continue in growth for the forseeable future.

Organic land at record high level

For the organic movement to press forward, it is vital that more and more land is dedicated to the farming of organic produce.

The amount of organic land in the UK has steadily increased in recent years, and now accounts for a healthy 4% of UK agricultural land. The rate at which land is dedicated to organic production has predictably slowed in recent times, but still the figure steadily increases.

Buying Trends

As the organic food movement gathers pace, more and more organic products will find their way onto supermarket shelves. The main multiple supermarkets currently corner 80% of the retail market in the UK, with Tesco and Sainsbury's leading the pack in terms of choice and availability. Interestingly though, consumer buying patterns show that the future of organic retail is not solely in the supermarkets grasp.

More and more, consumers are choosing to deal directly with the source, buying organic food straight from the producer. In 2003/2004 sales through box schemes, farmers’ markets and farm shops grew faster than any other retail outlet at 16%. Box scheme sales rose by over a fifth.

A large amount of the UK's organic food is currently imported, but as UK supply increases this will cease to be the case. The Organic Action Plan, which highlights a number of key goals for the UK's organics industry, has set a target of 70% home produced organic sales by 2010.