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Record Year for Organic Sales in Denmark

Tuesday, January 2, 2007
Posted in Organics | Tagged Organics

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The sale of certified organic food in Denmark in 2006 has set a new record as Danes buy organic food like they never have before. “I have a long time ago stopped pinching myself in the arm. This is not a dream, it is reality” said Hans Christian Ipland head purchaser for the food supermarket chain Irma in Denmark, which has the biggest range of organic food in its shops. In 2006 Irma managed to have 16% of its total sales in organic food. For example, Irma sold 41% more organic fruit and vegetables last year.

Health Perspective Important

Research has found that for Danes the health aspect of organic food is the biggest driver in the growth of organics with 60% of consumers saying that they buy organic because it is healthier for them. Overall, organic sales have risen by around 30% in the past few years, but there is an expectation that there will be a further overall 50% growth in the organic sector in 2007. Currently organic food makes up around 7% of all total food sales in Denmark and as such this makes the Danish organic sector the largest proportion of any country’s consumptiom of organic food in the world.

Katrine Milman of the COOP Denmark food store chain believes that new records will be seen in 2007. “We have had a growth of 20% in organic food sales in 2006 compared to 2005. But If you had asked me at the beginning of the year I would have guessed at only a 5% growth. There are three main reasons for this. There is more variety across the whole range of organic food, there is more being sold out in the provinces, consumers have more money in their hands and this helps with more being sold.” said Katrine Milman.

In 2006 the old heavy weight of organic sales milk has also seen growth again after not really growing in consuption since 2000. Thise Dairy has had a 50% growth in production in 2006 which is worth around DK100 million kroners (ca. NZD$30 million). They had to ask COOP not to advertise their organic milk products as they would not have been able to supply them. “It would have been like putting petrol on a fire.” said Mogens Poulsen of Thise. Thise is now going ahead with the largest investment in its history to expand production in the coming year.

Big Shortage in Organic Meat

The organic meat sector has also grown by 25% last year, which has resulted in a shortage of organic meat. “We have been sold out most of the year, and reckon that we could have had a 50% growth if there had been more meat available to supply.” said director Karsten Deiberg of Friland Ltd., which is looking for more farmers to convert to organics.

Research by FDB has found that price is still the biggest barrier, particularly for the lower paid, where 76% said they would buy more organic food if the price was lower. This disturbs the chairman for FDB Ebbe Lungaard who said “Our successful year has been mostly for the well paid, and I think if MOMS (GST in NZ) was less on organic food like in our neighbouring countries then we could lift the market and make organic food not just for the well off, but also the average Dane.”

Denmarks nearest competiton is countries like England where organics makes up 1.5%, Germany 2.7%, USA 2% with only Switzerland coming close to Denmark with 5% of all food sold being certified organic.

Translated from http://politiken.dk/indland/article219766.ece