U.S. organic sector growth drops to 12.5%?
OTA says growth figure not finalized yet, won't confirm marketing director's claim

by Sustainable Food News
March 4, 2009

Growth in the U.S. organic sector, including nonfood items, dropped in 2008 to 12.5 percent.

At least that’s what the Organic Trade Association’s marketing director, Laura Batcha, told an audience of retailers and distributors last week at a fruit convention in Indiana, according to a produce industry trade publication.

Batcha did not return a request for comment, but an OTA representative told Sustainable Food News that the group's organic sector growth report is still being finalized, and that the 12.5 percent growth figure could not be confirmed.

"Nothing mentioned in connection to [the organic sector growth figure] can be considered final until the final report is completed," the OTA representative said in an email. The organic sector growth report is expected to be published later this month.

Still, Batcha said last year's decline in the organic sector's growth was due mainly to the fall in consumer spending, according to the article in The Packer.

“It was a trend in 2008 that organic customers are becoming less finicky about where they buy organic products,” Batcha said, according to The Packer. “Shoppers are hopping around, going to different outlets, so we’re seeing a little shift in volume away from the natural channel.”

OTA had reported earlier that it anticipated growth of approximately 18 percent overall each year on average for 2007 through 2010 for organic food products. According to The Packer, Batcha said the sector’s growth in 2007 was 20 percent.

The OTA had projected total organic food and beverage sales in 2008 to hit $23.6 billion, which includes all retail and foodservice market channels.

The Nielsen Company recently reported that U.S. supermarkets rang up $4.9 billion in organic food sales last year, up 16 percent from 2007. The volume is based on U.S. grocery, drug, mass merchandisers (excluding Walmart), and not health food and natural stores.