We discovered where the current category of organic products is heading at this year’s BIOFACH 2015 fair. Here are our observations based on what we saw, learned, touched, tasted and asked about in Nurnberg.

“Pure as heaven, tasty as hell”

To express the strongest feeling from the perceived trend in this category of organic products, I borrow the slogan from one of the exhibiting producers. I believe it best catches the entire orientation of the “branch”. The current European range of organic products has increased immensely. However, this is not the most important change we noticed.

It actually concerns the way how these products and brands are presented to consumers through packaging, communication or at the point of sale. The entire category has undergone a significant conceptual change of its marketing philosophy. From the original position as the main value and the motivator to the shop, the organic attribute has gradually been demoted to one of “the reasons to believe” of a much broader category I’d call “crafted food”.

Not only does it provide the ultimate taste experience from  glorious, authentic and pure ingredients but it also engages a very strong, authentic story associated with the place of origin of the original ingredients, original recipe, traditional production process (very often hand-made), original way of distribution and sustainable approach to everything which is somehow connected with the end product. To be just organic is not enough any more …

It is obvious that quite different target groups are gaining an even higher profile. LOHAS segment, which was a primary target group for organic products and enabled the establishment of the category, is becoming more and more alternative. As “the health of the entire planet” is the main aim of this segment, the products are expected to be organic and also GMO-free, vegan (or at least vegetarian) and comply with a wide scale of ethical and other requirements.

Alongside, you can also watch the development of the so-called “natural” segments. They are more motivated by personal benefits and are the main target group for the above-mentioned “crafted food” category. It mostly concerns the above-average income segment. Therefore, the entire category of “crafted food” is a premium market, involving everything that’s associated with this market and what these premium products demand, i.e., a small batch (hence expensive) products, authentic story, unusual packaging, specific distribution and a different form of communication. This year’s BIOFACH fully proved all of these.

A natural and required-by-customer attribute of such grocery is the local origin. Therefore, the delivery in this category is spontaneously restricted to products or ingredients which can’t be locally produced. Even though many of these local producers, farms or manufacturers have been set up recently and a specific delivery network has also been developing (from farmers’ markets to shops like Sklizeno or DelMart to the internet sale), the real boom is yet to come in the Czech Republic.

Hopefully, what we will see then on the fields will be REAL food not only the industrial production or canola.