2021 Q3 Organic Produce Performance

Organic fresh produce generated and maintained slight sales and volume gains through Q3, 2021. However, the widespread pantry loading purchases of a year ago are in the comparative period of Q3, 2020. As such, sales in Q3 2021 compared to the same quarter last year are (not surprisingly) up only slightly and below the historical long term growth trends we have come to expect for organic produce.  

Vegetable categories in general benefited during Q3 last year as consumers were forced by restaurant closures to shift meals from foodservice outlets to home consumption. This shift moved out of home food consumption into meal preparation in homes giving larger lifts to many vegetable categories. As the food service sector re-opened, consumers began to shift some meals back to foodservice channels. The net result in Q3, 2021 is many produce categories had minimal growth when matched against Q3, 2020.

The good news is Q3, 2021 still generated year over year growth in organic produce despite a comp period of Q3 2020 when pandemic-driven shopping continued to distort consumer behavior. In fact, Q3 organic produce still generated volume growth while conventional produce volume declined against Q3 last year.

Looking back to earlier this year, Q2, 2021 revealed this same trend with organic produce delivering growth for the period. Organic produce growth was higher than conventional produce which actually showed a substantial volume decline.

It’s apparent that consumer supermarket food purchases now increasingly reflect the more traditional buying trends vs. Covid inspired purchasing changes. It is also encouraging that even though consumer purchases of conventional produce were lower than Q3, 2020 organic produce continued to generate growth. This shows that the longer-term trend of consumers moving toward organic produce continues to grow as organic’s share of the market rises.