It always amazes me how two different journals can run the same story with such different interpretations.
Case in point is this week's report from the IGD, (or Institute of Grocery Distribution in its former guise), which is the latest survey tracking the performance of the organic sector during the recession.
According to the headline on food trade website talkingretail.com "Consumers are still supporting organic food".
The article goes on to explain that "nearly one in five of all UK shoppers are remaining loyal to organic food and drink, and are maintaining their expenditure".
Compare and contrast that upbeat message with our own interpretation. "Four out of five shoppers shun organic". According to our report, 10% of former organic shoppers have found alternative products, while another 8% are buying fewer products.
We're not by nature a miserable lot in the Farmers Weekly office. But I do believe our headline better reflects what is going on in the retail sector.....
According to the IGD report, 8% of consumers say they don't understand what organic stands for any more, while over 40% say the have never been interested in organic.
That's not to say that all is lost for organic producers - far from it. But it pays to remember that, despite all the noise made by proponents of organic food and farming, it still accounts for just 2% of the retail food sector.
Yes, it has taken a knock during the recession. And the recent report from the Food Standards Agency, showing that organic food offers no nutritional benefit at all over conventional food, could deliver another blow.
But I don't doubt that the organic sector will stage a recovery in the years ahead. That much is confirmed by the IGD survey, which shows that 9% of consumers will buy more organic food, once they have a bit more money in their pockets.
And when they do so, that will provide a useful opportunity for those farmers who choose to cater for their needs.
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Given the negative press over organic food in the UK, the assumption has been that people would leave the category in droves.
Therefore, to read that one in five appears to be staying loyal to the fixture is an interesting stat and I can see why Talking Retail chose that angle.
1. You seem to be repeating the sub title of the organic nutrient study without having read it. In the extraordinarily small sampling set, most nutrients were about the same. However, they inadvertently failed to measure and report on several other nutrients that showed organic foods with signficantly higher concentrations of beneficials(polyphenols and other antioxidants, for one.) Ooops. Too bad their limited findings have been so widely reported and repeated.
2. A glass is half empty if you are drinking, half full if you are pouring. 20% organic affinity is important because it is growing -- rapidly. In US, 75% of households have purchased organic in last year (OTA), also up. Corporate organic farms can and do make money alongside those engaged in GMO / chemical growing, so why kill off 10,000 square miles of the Gulf of Mexico by continuing 1950's agricultural practices?
The organic (aka anti-Monsanto anti-Roundup) debate has some really fascinating interplay of priniciples and ideas at stake that affect everyone's future. Let's all take the time to get factually educated instead of skipping across the surface.
For some the glass is always cracked and half empty with stagnant festering water.
Organics is a marketing opportunity and for some an ideology, so why be so down on it? Surely anything that allows a business to develop and flourish has got to be good, right?
I used to teach organic production to agricultural students and for some reason I could never fathom they hated it with a passion and I mean hated. I would ask "why is it that what a neighbouring farmers does upset you so much" and the general response once discussed and debated was essentially a fear of change and the unknown.