By Karin Heinze (Photo by NürnbergMesse GmbH)

The turnover of organic food grew strongly in Germany in 2016. This was reported by the Bund Ökologische Lebensmittelwirtschaft (BÖLW) and the Arbeitskreis Biomarkt  prior to the launch of BioFach. Also the area of organically managed agricultural land and the number of farms grew.

An increase of nearly 10% in the turnover of organic food

In the retail trade the sale of organic products has increased sharply: in 2016 Germans bought organic food and beverages to the value of 9.48 billion euros. This information can be found in the report of the Arbeitskreis Biomarkt that is coordinated by the Agrarmarkt Informations-Gesellschaft (AMI). This means that the Germans spent 9.9 %  more on organic products than in 2015.

Conventional retail boosted sales

The analysis tells us that full-range suppliers in the conventional retail food trade in particular boosted sales by stocking bigger product ranges. The specialist wholefood trade also grew strongly, but less vigorously than in previous years. The conventional retail food trade achieved total organic turnover of 5.45 billion euros, which is an increase of 14.6%

According to the figures of the Arbeitskreis Biomarkt, the conventional retail food trade accounted for 58% of the total organic market. The turnover of food in the wholefood trade grew by 5% to 2.85 billion euros (including non-food to 3.21 billion euros), which equates to a market share of 30%.

In the other businesses, such as bakeries, butchers, farm shops, mail order, weekly markets and health food stores, customers bought organic products to the value of 1.18 billion euros. Here growth was somewhat weaker than in the previous year that experienced strong growth.

The author is Editor of www.bio-markt.info (German) and www.organic-market.info (English), online magazines for organic trade