I just sent this email to a my friend, Stephen. He's a good farmer and a bit of a retail watcher like me (the retail watching bit, I mean, I'm not suggesting for a second that I'm a good farmer). He reads the Grocer and everything.
He is converting some of his farm to organic on the back of the growth in that sector (the rest of his farm is LEAF Marque).
I emailed him this graph about falling organic sales this morning, what are friends for after all? He sent a reply saying "Oh dear, looks like I could be making a lot of soup next year."
I wonder if this sales contraction is affecting all premium lines. Flower sales are falling at almost exactly the same rate as organic.
Does anyone have a recipe for gladioli soup?
Hi, It might be of interest to some in the organic community that this fall does indeed seem to be spread across the sector. I am a grading manager in a well known organic company supplying supermarkets and we have been experiencing a fall in expectations of sales in the carrot and parsnip sector. This however is after 5 years of 20% growth and I believe is mostly down to the belt tightening that is going on all round the economy.I have been ( and still am) a small farmer as well as working in the food industrydealing with onions,carrots and parsnips.Organics have taken a bigger share of the market than I would have believed 10 yrs ago but this pause may well last a couple of years before getting back to the trend line.
It's not all gloom and doom though as I have seen the quality of organic product grown in this country improve dramatically over the last few years reflecting the huge effort and professionalism of the more successful growers.