Recession-Racked Shoppers Still Spend On Organics

For the past three years, American consumers have been on a shopping diet. They’ve cut nonessentials from their shopping lists. They’ve made do. They’ve thought twice before buying.
And yet they’ve continued to open their wallets for natural and organic products.
Many shoppers say these items remain on their shopping lists because they’re concerned about their health, the environment, America’s agribusiness or all three.
It’s that dedication that has made organics a bright spot for many retailers and is allowing some to expand, including Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s, the California-based grocer known for its array of foods without preservatives, additives and other unnatural ingredients. Two Trader Joe’s stores are slated to open this year, at Ward Parkway Center in south Kansas City and Leawood’s One Nineteen.
The commitment to organics has surprised some who predicted at the onset of the recession that penny-pinching consumers would avoid such higher-priced items.
“I think possibly that a lot of organics are bought by a higher demographic that’s a little above average and were not as impacted by the economy as other economic groups,” said Brian Todd, president of the Food Institute, a New Jersey group that studies food prices.
Yet despite the ongoing pressure on some shoppers’ budgets, the results are clear.
Last year, overall sales for the grocery industry were up a modest 1.8 percent, according to the Food Institute. Sales of organic items more than doubled that rate of growth, up 4.4 percent in the 52 weeks ending Feb. 20, according to Symphony IRI in Chicago.
Shoppers like Kris Kirschbaum are behind those figures.
Kirschbaum lives in Greenville, N.C., but drives to Raleigh once or twice a month to stock up on natural and organic items at Whole Foods.
Kirschbaum, uses coupons when she shops and says she learned to live frugally when she was a graduate student making $1,000 a month. Now a healthful diet is her No. 1 priority.
“It’s just a health issue,” she said. “This is where I choose to spend.”
Part of the reason sales are staying strong is that organic products are more widely available than in the past.
Major grocery store chains have also bulked up on organics. That comes on top of a shift in the product manufacturing world, with large companies such as Kraft and Procter & Gamble introducing more natural selections.
That availability has led to a new type of organic shopper: the dabbler.
Catherine Dameron shops at Lowes Foods, Food Lion and Walmart. She often, though not always, selects organic items.
“If it looks fresh and the price is about the same, I’ll do it,” she said, shopping at a Raleigh Walmart last week and loading her cart up with bagged spinach, strawberries and other natural foods. “The quality has improved.”
And, Dameron added, it has gotten more affordable.
“Ten years ago, when I started shopping for more fresh fruits and veggies, I noticed my food bill went up probably about 25 percent. Now it’s evened out.”
The demand for organics is so strong that it is spreading to other areas of the grocery store, particularly health, beauty and cleaning supplies.
Companies like Seventh Generation and Burt’s Bees have experienced success with their natural and organic products.
Clorox credited its Burt’s Bees line with strengthening its overall results in its quarterly earnings release last month. The company reported a 3 percent decline in overall sales but a 3 percent rise in sales in its lifestyle category, driven largely by Burt’s Bees products.
Still, some think demand for natural and organic products may have hit its peak.
Kurt Jetta is president of a Connecticut consumer research firm called the TABS Group. His recent research shows that the percentage of shoppers who bought natural or organic items has remained steady, in the 38 percent to 39 percent range for the past three years.
It’s the number of retailers carrying natural and organic items and the number of products each is stocking that adds to the impression that organic sales are exploding.
“All these retailers are getting on board and expanding their sections and having these big offerings,” he said. “That’s a big explosion in inventory. The retailers have gotten on the hype a bit too much.”
Plus, he said, the fact that an item is organic or natural is just not that impressive to shoppers anymore.
“There will always be this real core of committed people,” he said. “That’s why Whole Foods and similar stores continue to grow. But we would expect that to turn and retailers to start weeding down.”
But some shoppers say they will remain loyal to organics and hope retailers don’t trim their offerings.
Melissa Smith of Raleigh said she started to buy natural and organic items because her pets had special needs and are sensitive to chemicals. The habit has transferred to her family’s food purchases as well.
“I grew up on a farm,” she said. “We raised our own meats. We grew our own vegetables. All that has stuck with me. Yes, it may be a little bit more, but it’s worth it.”
NATURAL VS. ORGANIC
Though product labeling can be confusing, natural and organic do not mean the same thing.
Organic refers to items that are produced, manufactured and handled using organic means and certified by agencies such as the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The USDA also has different levels of organic certification, from 100 percent organic to Made With Organic Ingredients, which means the product is made of at least 70 percent organic ingredients.
Natural refers to food items that are not altered chemically or synthesized. These are generally from plants or animals.
from The Kansas City Star

Tesco Welcomes Organic Food Back On The Shelves

UNITED KINGDOM - This week UK major retailer Tesco turns enthusiastically back to organics with a new organic brand manager that will review the range, price, quality and communication for organic food in Tesco stores in all UK.
At Organic Trade Board (OTB) meeting on September 22, Go for Growth, Tesco announced that it has employed an organic brand manager as part of the retailer's promise to get organic produce back on the shelves.
Last year actually Tesco reduced the organic line because of the economic recession and the impact it had on customer spending. "Consumers were trying to reduce their monthly outgoings and they did stop buying organic produce", said Andrea Mulqueen, head of Tesco’s organic fresh produce team.
However, Ms. Mulqueen - talking to OTB delegates last week - admitted that "in hindsight Tesco had made mistakes in removing certain organic fruit and vegetables from the shelves", Freshinfo.com reports. "So in October [2008], Tesco introduced a new buying team for fruit, salads and vegetables for organic. We also talked to the supply base and customers. Now we are nearly all the way back to how it was. We need to support the industry."
Today more than a quarter of the Tesco’s fresh produce customers buy organic, which equates to 3.6 million Clubcard holders.
Tesco's plan to relaunch organic foods will consider the range, price, quality of products: “We now have a top-10 list of organic fruit and vegetables that must be available in any one store, like blueberries, leeks and lemons, that are really important to the organic customer”, she added.
Furthermore, the approach will be specific for each particular store’s demographic and area: “It is about the right range in the right store and getting those customers back,” Ms. Mulqueen explained.
Focus will also be on communication and in-store promotional events.
from Green Planet

Organic Produce No Healthier

CANADA - According to a recent study conducted by British researchers, the nutritional quality of organically farmed fruits and vegetables is similar to the quality of those produced using traditional farming methods.
According to a survey conducted by the Canadian Cancer Society, 70% of Canadians are concerned about the presence of pesticide residue found on fruits and vegetables.
While this concern is understandable (we all want to live in a pesticide and pollution-free world), you must still keep in mind that the vast majority of these foods contain only miniscule quantities of these chemicals.
In fact, 97% of imported and 99% of Canadian agriculture products don't contain pesticide levels in excess of the safety limits imposed on food by Health Canada.
But despite this information, the demand for organic foods has continued to rise in recent years. However, organic food products are generally more expensive. But does the added cost really translate into food that is better for you?
Many studies have tried to prove that organically grown foods contain larger quantities of nutrients than food produced using traditional methods.
The results, however, have all been very different. Some have shown a higher content of antioxidants in the organic product, while some found no difference whatsoever.
To try and clear things up, researchers from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in England thoroughly examined all of the studies conducted to determine the differences between conventionally and organically grown food in the last 50 years.
After identifying 55 studies that contained the required scientific properties, the researchers compared each type of food's content of nutrients (including vitamins, minerals and phenolic compounds).
This analysis showed unequivocally that the differences between the two types of food production are much smaller than predicted.
For example, the content of nutrients such as vitamin C, phenolic compounds and minerals such as magnesium, calcium, potassium, zinc and copper don't change, regardless of how the food was produced.
Minor differences were discovered when it came to phosphorous (higher in organic foods) and nitrogen (higher in conventionally grown food), but these differences are too small to have an impact on one's health. In other words, organically grown or not, fruits and vegetables have the same nutritional qualities.
These results confirm what we have said several times: vegetables play a major role in the prevention of chronic illnesses and, when it comes to their impact on your health, it doesn't matter whether these veggies were grown organically or not. The important thing is to eat them as often as possible!
But even if organic fruits and vegetables don't offer you superior health benefits, there are nonetheless several good reasons to pick these products if you are able to afford them.
For one, the absence of pesticides and other chemicals allows organic farmers to avoid exposing themselves to high concentrations of the chemicals.
People may also prefer to go organic because the produce looks better, tastes better or comes from small, local sources.
And of course, for people who can't stand the thought of exposing themselves to any chemicals whatsoever, the idea of controlling what goes into their bodies by favouring organic foods will likely be an attractive concept.
from The Toronto Sun

Organic Food Really Is Better For You

Organic food is healthier than conventional produce and may be better at preventing cancer and heart disease, according to the biggest study of its kind.
In a finding that challenges official advice, researchers have shown that fruit and vegetables contain up to 40 per cent more nutrients if they are grown without chemical fertilisers and pesticides.
The £12 million project also found that organic milk contains 80 per cent more antioxidants -substances which reduce the risk of tumours and life threatening problems.
Organic produce also had higher levels of iron and zinc, vital nutrients lacking in many people's diets.
The findings could help settle the long running debate over the health benefits of organic food.
A spokesman for the Food Standards Agency - which has come under fire for insisting that organic produce is no more healthier than conventional food - said it would review the latest study.
The findings come from Prof Carlo Leifert, an expert in organic food whose four year Newcastle University study is funded by the European Union and food companies.
He said the health benefits were so striking that moving to organic food was the equivalent of eating an extra portion of fruit and vegetables every day.
"If you have just 20 per cent more antioxidants in every portion of vegetables, then it's simply a question of maths - eating four portion of organic fruit and vegetables is the equivalent to eating five portions of traditional fruit and vegetables," he said.
"Having said that, eating five portions of organic is even better still."
His team grew fruit and vegetables and reared cows on organic and non-organic sites on a 725 acre farm near at Newcastle University.
They found that levels of antioxidants in milk from organic cattle were between 50 and 80 per cent higher than conventional milk.
Organic wheat, tomatoes, potatoes, cabbage, onions and lettuce had between 20 and 40 per cent more nutrients.
Although the study has yet to be published in a peer-reviewed journal, Prof Leifert is convinced the findings are sound.
He also believes there is enough evidence for the Food Standards Agency to change its advice on organic food and admits to being puzzled why the agency has not already done so.
"I wonder whether it's more to do with politics," he said.
The research suggests that organic fruit and vegetable is healthier because it uses more natural fertiliser such as clover and manure.
"Plants have evolved to get nutrients from organic matter, " he said.
"They need only a small amount early on in the year, and most in the summer. Yet with chemical fertiliser, they get most soon after planting and very little when they need it most."
The study - which runs for another year - found that milk was more nutritious in the summer, when cattle are grazing fresh grass.
"If you feed a cow on grass you get better milk," he said.
"I suspect that because British cattle have so much grass in their diet that nutrient levels may be higher in conventional UK milk than in some imported organic milk."
The Soil Association, which has been embroiled in a decade long dispute with the FSA over the health benefits of organic food, has welcomed the latest research.
There are few signs that the boom in organic food is ending. Sales are growing by 25 per cent each year and shoppers now spend around £2 billion a year on organic produce.
The reasons why organic food is popular vary. Some shoppers buy it for the taste, others to reduce exposure to chemicals.
Organic meat is popular among shoppers concerned about animal welfare.
The Food Standards Agency has ordered a review into its advice on organic food and health benefits. The results are expected in March.
"Until then the advice remains that there is no evidence that organic food has higher levels of nutrients than conventional food," a spokesman said.
The new study shows that organic milk has 60 to 80 per cent more nutrients in the summer than conventional milk, and 50 to 60 per cent more in the winter.
Organic milk also has higher levels of vitamin E.
Organic cheese can have up to twice as many nutrients than conventional varieties.
Organic tomatoes, wheat, potatoes, cabbage, onions and wheat have 20 to 40 per cent more antioxidants than conventional fruit and vegetables.
Organic spinach and cabbage have been found to have more minerals.
from This Is London