Food: According to the DHBW study, organic is booming – despite high prices

This corresponds to an increase of 5.5 percent compared to the previous year and thus an increase almost four times as strong as the rest of the food market (+1.4 percent). According to the information, the organic share of food sales reached a new high of 6.9 percent.

The own brands of the large retail chains, which are increasingly offering organic products, play a special role. According to the survey, two thirds of organic sales come from retailers' own brands - around 20 percentage points more than in the food market as a whole, according to the study, which combines market data with a weighted online survey of more than 2,000 consumers. The organic private labels have gained around 5.4 billion euros in sales since 2020, more than the entire market growth. Organic branded items, on the other hand, have lost importance since then.

Organic food is often only bought occasionally

This is consistent with the fact that, according to the study, organic sales have risen sharply, particularly at discounters and drugstore chains. Drugstores are now even selling more than organic health food stores, whose share of sales has fallen by more than six percent since 2020.

The organic private labels are now serious competition for brand suppliers, says study author Stephan Rüschen, who researches the food trade at the DHBW Heilbronn. »The organic seal alone is no longer enough as an argument. Brands have to prove their added value in terms of origin, taste and association quality.«

There is room for this – also because the proportion of regular customers for organic products can still grow. According to the study, almost half of all consumers (45 percent) only buy organic products occasionally. Around 30 percent of those surveyed said they were sustainably oriented, but only bought organic on an irregular basis. “Organic has arrived in the mass market – but not yet in everyday shopping,” says Rüschen. “Almost everyone buys organic, but only about one in four buys it regularly.”

A few weeks ago, another study by Rüschen and his DHBW colleague Carsten Kortum also showed that the gap between consumers' pro-organic attitudes and actual purchasing behavior has narrowed in recent years.

The question remains why organic products continue to boom given the enormous price increases. Kortum has a hunch about this: organic buyers are not primarily those target groups for whom money is tight anyway.

Read more about it here: Germans are known for their thrift when it comes to eating; especially during the economic crisis, they treat themselves to delicatessen. Why Germans no longer skimp on food.