Gene Hoffman

Market Baskets See Organic Sales Growth

August 17, 2010

FROM RETAILWIRE:
While much of the reporting in recent years has shown consumers trading down in grocery stores, a new survey shows demand for higher-priced natural and/or organic products on the upswing. What is your takeaway from the big increase in the numbers of consumers who report that natural and/or organics make up at least 25 percent of their food purchases?      [more...]

Increasingly more people with money want to eat healthy foods and thereby live longer. They will pay more for that perceived primal privilege and the psychological uplift it brings to their psyche. It's appears to have become the current principle in life.

A retailer who specializes in natural foods, such as Whole Foods or Lakewinds, can more easily capture the imaginative hearts and minds of this potent shopping audience since they aren't trying to be all things to all people. In fact, they don't really want "all people" as customers, just the health nuts blessed with "affordability."

Mainstream grocers don't have this luxury built into their business models even though many try to capture some of the beloved profits in natural foods by including them in their assortments. But the mystic lies in "totality" and that's where the natural foods grocers have the edge.