Are You Ready to Take the Leap into International Organic Markets?

There’s a big world of organic consumers and one area that’s often overlooked by US producers is the growing global marketplace.

According to latest surveys, the global organic food market reached $97 billion US Dollars in 2017. The US leads this global market followed by Germany, France and China, with the top export markets for US producers being Canada, Mexico, Japan, Taiwan and South Korea.

Each year the Organic Trade Association (OTA) receives annual grant funding from USDA to support export promotion of U.S. organic products.  These export initiatives are funded through the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) Market Access Program (MAP).

Since 1999, FAS has awarded millions of dollars to OTA to help expand commercial export markets for U.S. organic products.

Through this program, OTA looks to showcase and educate key target markets on the quality, integrity and variety of USDA-certified organic products available for export around the world.

The majority of the international activities are tradeshows, trade missions, and buyers’ missions in foreign countries. For a tradeshow, for example, the program will typically pay for roundtrip economy airfare and hotel for 1 person along with a countertop in the OTA pavilion for your products.

OTA will return to Biofach in Nuremburg Germany to host a pavilion of 14 U.S. organic companies in February 2020.  Biofach is the largest tradeshow in the world for organic products and occurs in conjunction with the annual Biofach Congress of educational seminars.

In February 2020 they will host six US organic companies at GULFOODS in Dubai and eight companies at FOODEX in Tokyo Japan.

OTA will also be at FOOD AND HOTEL ASIA in March-April in Singapore and in June 2020, exploring the European Market by participating in meeting buyers in the U.K. and Netherlands.

You don’t have to be an OTA member to be part of the USDA program.

If your company has products that are USDA certified organic, produced in the USA, and made of 51% or more of U.S. based ingredients either by value (cost of the ingredients) or volume (against overall weight of the product), you are eligible for international programming support.

There is valuable trade data available on the Global Organic Trade Guide. A website designed primarily for US businesses interested in selling their organic agricultural products around the world.

Here, you can find information specific to selling organic products. By using the map or the drop-down menu you can choose a destination for your products. Discover which of your products are most desirable in each country.

The information is provided for each country or region, and includes links to the organic regulations or standards, contact information for government agencies, special requirements for imported organic products, information about certification, and more.