Read about the latest trends and opportunities in the organic grocery market

23 July 2021

After consistent growth over the past few years, the take-home organic grocery retail market is looking more optimistic than ever, with the market now worth a billion pounds.

In this article, we provide a quick overview of market progress, consumer behaviours and where there are opportunities for growth in the sector. It is still important to highlight however that although the organic retail market is looking strong, the foodservice sector is still and will continue to be impacted by the pandemic over the coming months.

The wider organic market

  • In 2020 the organic market was worth £1.35bn.
  • There was a 14.1% growth in the grocery sector. This is higher than the record growth recorded across the whole grocery market.

Consumer spend on organic retail produce

  • Spend on organics per trip continued to increase. During 2020, on average £3.37 each trip was spent on organic products.
  • More traditional organic categories saw growth. Dairy achieved a 12.1% growth and there was a 15.7% growth in the fresh produce category.

Organic shoppers

  • In 2020, 9 out of 10 households bought at least one organic product.
  • In 2020, there were an additional 4 million organic shoppers. However, organic sales are still dependent on a key number of heavy purchasing shoppers - 5% of organic shoppers represent 50% of the spend in the sector.
  • 6 million (or 23.7%) of organic shoppers buy only one organic category.

Opportunities in the market for organic produce

  • The uptake in online shopping can benefit organic. Organic produce can be more easily searched for online when compared with shopping in store.
  • If the 10% of 6.6 million shoppers that already purchase one organic product were to buy two organic products, this would generate £3.7m for the organic market. Research suggests that there is a 1 in 3 chance that this second product would be in the dairy category.
  • 50% of millennials are more likely to buy organic products post-COVID-19.
  • Two out of three British consumers would swap to organic for the Organic September event.
  • Research suggests that 40% of consumers are concerned about the environment but are not making the connection to organic.

This data was collected by Kantar Data for the Organic Trade Board.

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