Consumers turn their backs on organic food as recession bites

A survey of consumers by grocery expert, IGD, showed that ethical shopping for food has not lost momentum in the economic downturn.

But while demand for ‘Fairtrade’, local, British and free range food has grown, organic food has ‘lost momentum in the last year’.

The proportion of shoppers who say they bought organic food in the last month has dropped to 19 per cent, compared with 24 per cent in 2008, the survey revealed.

IGD chief executive, Joanne Denney-Finch, said consumers were ‘looking again at every option’ as the recession bites but were ‘not about to abandon their tastes, habits and beliefs that have been built up over the last decade or more’.

“While becoming increasingly price sensitive in these challenging times, shoppers are not leaving their ethical concerns at home when they go food shopping.”

She added: “Only organic seems to have suffered a small decline. We believe this is partly due to a swing towards other ethical options, and it is mainly among more casual organic shoppers. A strong core of dedicated organic shoppers remains.”

According to IGD’s Shopper Trends 2009, a quarter of British consumers have purchased ‘Fairtrade’ in the last month, almost three times more than 2006.

The number of shoppers buying locally produced food has almost doubled in the last three years to 27 per cent, while the proportion who regard country of origin as important has increased to 23 per cent, compared with 16 per cent in 2006.

A fifth are concerned about the distance food travels, double the proportion of three years ago.

Almost half (46 per cent) of respondents mentioned animal living conditions when asked about concerns they have relating to food production, up from 30 per cent in 2006.

SEE this Friday's Farmers Guardian for our special news analysis on the future of organics.

Have your say

Please do not complete the following form field for security reasons.

Name

E-mail

Comment