Year after year of growing sales show that organic food is not a disappearing market. The American organic industry topped $43 billion in 2016, surpassing the $40 billion mark for the first time.
The Organic Trade Association’s 2016 Organic Industry Survey revealed that organic food sales climbed by 8.4 percent last year. This compares to just 0.6 percent growth of the nation’s total food sales.
Organic fruits and vegetables remain as the top performers with $15.6 billion in sales, realizing 8.4 percent growth in 2016. Fruits and vegetables of the organic variety represented 36.3 percent of all organic food sales and 15 percent of all produce sales.
Following in second place was the organic dairy category. Organic dairy sales reached $6.4 billion in 2016, up 6.2 percent from the year before.
Organic meat and poultry also did well, shooting up 17 percent to $991 million for the category’s biggest gain ever. More specifically, poultry sales grew an impressive 23 percent.
The organic condiments’ category is small but showing wild growth. Organic dip sales posted 41 percent growth, while organic spices grew 35 percent.
Organic food currently represents 5.3 percent of all food sales in the United States.
Sales of organic nonfood items were strong as well, jumping 8.8 percent to $3.9 billion in 2016. This category fared much better than the 0.8 percent growth of nonfood sales of comparable, nonorganic items.
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(c) Hoard's Dairyman Intel 2017
July 24, 2017
