Healthier eating spurs demand for organic foods

Organic foods are becoming more popular as shoppers turn to natural foods grown without chemicals.

“It’s growing, and it’s going to continue to grow by leaps and bounds,” said Phil Lembert, food commentator and owner of Supermarket-guru.com.

Sales of organic food have more than doubled since 1997, although they are still a sliver of overall food sales.

Sales of organic foods was $3.6 billion of the $443.7 billion in total U.S. food sales in 1997. Last year, they reached $10.4 billion of the $554.8 billion food market and an increase of 20 percent over 2002, according to the Organic Trade Association.

A separate report by the Food Marketing Institute and Prevention magazine says six in 10 U.S. shoppers think organic food is more healthy, and half of those surveyed had bought organic food within the six months before the 2003 survey.

Increased demand for organic products has resulted in an increased supply in supermarkets as well as growth of natural-food grocers.

Safeway, which has 100 stores in the Washington area, has been expanding its organic selection over the last three years. It has remodeled 18 stores in the area to include a natural foods “store within a store” section.

Choosing whether to include a natural foods section in a Safeway store is based on marketing information detailing whether such a section would be successful in each store, said Greg TenEyck, director of public affairs for Safeway’s eastern division.

“We’re in the business of providing what customers would like, and there is an increasing demand from our customers for a growing variety of organic food and we are fulfilling that need,” Mr. TenEyck said.

Sharon Brook has been feeding her family organic meat for the last 20 years. A mother of three from McLean, she says she believes organic foods are healthier.

“I buy organic because I believe that most probably the pesticides and hormones that we use on our foods are doing us detriment, and I want to keep us healthy,” Mrs. Brook said.

Whole Foods Markets, a Texas-based natural food chain, has 18 stores in the Washington area and 152 nationwide. It bought Rockville-based Fresh Fields in 1996 and has continued to buy out smaller natural foods stores around the world.

About 50 such stores are in the Washington area, an increase from the 11 in business in 1997, according to Trade Dimensions, a Connecticut research company. In addition, most local mainstream grocery stores, such as Safeway and Giant Food, now offer organic foods alongside their mainstream counterparts.

Seven out of every 10 retail food stores now offer organic products, according to a Food Marketing Institute report conducted in 2003.

My Organic Market, a local natural foods store, was started in 1996 in Rockville. It now has three locations, including College Park and Alexandria. Sales at the My Organic Market in College Park have grown 20 percent from last year’s $5 million, according to College Park manager Annie Kuebler.

“I’ve been here over six years and it just grows every year,” Miss Kuebler said. “The more people are interested in nutrition and diet, the more we end up having people come in.”

Organic food tends to cost more than standard fare because it is produced on a smaller scale.

At Safeway, customers pay 20 percent to 50 percent more for organic food. The Food Marketing Institute’s “Shopping for Health 2003” report found that the average organic shopper spends about $682 more a year on groceries than the non-organic shopper.

The concept of organic food has been around since the 1940s, after pesticides gained wide acceptance for use on crops and some farmers chose to farm without chemicals. In 1953, the Natural Food Associates was formed in Atlanta, Texas, to connect the organic farmers.

But organic started taking off in 2002, when the U.S. Department of Agriculture issued new standards for what constitutes “organic” food.

To bear the organic label, food must be grown without toxic chemicals, contain no genetically modified organisms, no sewage sludge and no irradiation. Meats can be classified “organic” only if the animal is fed organically grown feed, has access to a pasture and has not been given hormones or antibiotics.

“Clearly, when the regulations came out 21/2 years ago that’s when we started to see the groundswell. Before that people were confused about what organic means,” Mr. Lempert said.

Eating organic became popular on the West Coast and in college towns 30 or 40 years ago. Analysts think the recent increase in interest is a result of baby boomers looking for new ways to stay healthy.

“It’s driven largely by aging baby boomers seeking different solutions to better health and nutrition and well-being,” said Todd Hultquist, senior manager of media relations at the Food Marketing Institute.

Another reason may be that consumers are realizing the benefits of being earth-friendly extend beyond taking care of the environment.

“What we’ve seen in the last 20 years is interest in all things that are great for the planet,” Mr. Lempert said. “It’s taken people this long to understand that what’s also good for the planet is good for us.”