organic and the credit crunch: part 2

Before this one starts, if you get a chance on thursday, have a look at ear to the ground . Its on at 7pm. I'll be on it, as part of a feature on the Organics with Altitude initiative. (it is also repeated on sunday mornings)

For more on organics with altitude, click here

And now, more on organics and the economy:

The organic market in Ireland is now worth 117 million Euros. That�s according to the latest TNS figures, which run from mid June for 12 weeks up to the 5^th October.

12 weeks ago, the market was recorded as being at 104 million by TNS. This 117 million Euro figure is a total growth of almost 40% relative to last year�s sales.

Importantly, this figure includes the credit crunch months of August and in particular September, both of which recorded much the same growth as the mid June and July.

Growth was just over 10% from June to 5^th October, and 7% of this occurred in August and September.

To further understand emergent trends in the market, I�ve also spoken to 16 people involved in the business over the past two weeks, to better gauge what�s happening in the market.

These include 8 farmers, all of whom sell direct to consumers; two organic food businesses; one meat producer group representative; two retailers who stock significant amounts of Irish produced organic produce; one butcher who sell organic meat and finally two distributors/wholesalers.

Some of the above do more than one food or farming activity, as often is the case with organic businesses. However, they are only listed once above. It is worth noting that this is not a full and comprehensive representative sample of all stakeholders.

It seems that, as the TNS figures suggest and despite general media hype, the organic market is still strong.

The majority have reported either growth or consolidation, while two suggested that their figures were back a small amount compared to this time last year. None felt that organic food sales were suffering as much as other areas in the economy.

To some extent, consumers are changing their shopping�s �who, what, where and how much.

Individuals are buying bigger, catering like portions. Retailers have noted a specific turn towards 25kg bags of flour, as well as catering portions of other cooking and baking ingredients, such as nuts and dried fruits.

There are also inevitable seasonal changes, such as a turn towards roasts for the oven.

However the �who, what� and �where� part of the above equation is very interesting. To some extent, sales have not been hit too hard, because some specific people are behaving differently.

While the discounters are doing well, it is also the case that some direct sellers are suggesting that the kinds of people who normally eat out a couple of times per week are now cooking more at home. These consumers are buying high end produce from them, such as organic sirloin and striplion steaks.

It may also be the case that consumers have put off the bigger luxury spends, such as a holiday or a car upgrade, but are to some extent compensating with luxury foods.

Because reports from the UK pointed out a drop in the sales of organic eggs, I was especially interested in this.

However, the direct selling egg producer I spoke to claimed to still sell out, and not to notice any decline in turnover.

I specifically was interested in finding out whether people were turning from exotics to staples and from sweets to savoury.

This does not seem to be the case to a significant extent. It may be that some consumers have stopped with exotics, but others have taken up the slack.

While some organic fresh fruit and vegetable stalls have reported a softening in the sales of what could be classed as exotic or higher end fruits and vegetables, this is not at all clear and definitive.

One wholesaler suggested that, to the organic consumer, certain products are less exotic anyway, and that there is more price competition amongst producers because of this.

So all types of salad leaves, peppers, pumpkins and sweet potato sales were up for the sample week he showed me, which was the 40^th week of the year (mid October). At the same time, apples, carrots and potato sales were down. It is noteworthy that these latter three were all Irish produced, whereas the �exotics� were both Irish and imported.

All told, it seems to be the case that the Irish organic market remains robust.