Study Says Organic Sales Slowing

"Persistent rumblings about slowdowns sales in certain organic categories, as well as a suspected plateauing of overall organic segment movement, may have some truth behind them, according to new research from The Hartman Group, a marketing research firm based in Bellevue, Wash.

The group's latest national study, "The Many Faces of Organic: 2008," found that aggregate consumer use of organics dropped four percentage points from 73 percent of the population buying organics in 2006, to 69 percent in 2008.

Many factors are currently at play that could be prompting a plateauing of organic food sales, especially in certain categories, according to the report. Those factors include:
-- A renaissance within the 'culture of food' that has put increasing focus on formerly fringe food categories such as local and artisan products; and also segments that have dotted-line links to organics, but also stand on their own, including fair trade, humane, cage-free, and free-range.
-- A waning of consumer interest as 'organic' comes to mean so many things that its distinctive impact is blunted, and it becomes subsumed into a more conventional classification of "quality."

Read the article