I put together the first version of this graphic in 2003, approximately a year after the USDAs national organic standard was phased in. This national standard helped to catalyze scores of acquisitions of pioneering organic brands by larger food processors and venture capitalists. These trends have only intensified. Continue reading Organic Processing Industry Structure 2020
The development of the USDA National Organic Standard in place of differing state/regional standards was widely predicted to accelerate trends of increasing consolidation in this sector. The first draft of the standard was released in 1997; what changes in ownership and control have since occurred? Continue reading Organic Processing Industry Structure
Each cell in these “treemaps” represents a single farm, and its size is proportional to the sales or acreage category to which it belongs. Caution should be used in interpreting these graphics because the top categories are truncated (i.e. a farm with $10 million in sales is shown as the same size as a farm with $1 million in sales), and commodities vary substantially in market value and acreage requirements. Continue reading Organic Farm Concentration
The chart above is based on data from the Organic Trade Association. Sales of organic food have increased approximately 20% annually since 1990. The Organic Agriculture Centre notes similar trends in Canada and conservatively estimates annual sales of at least C$1 billion in 2006. Mass market channels accounted for 46% of all organic foods sold in the US in 2005. An increasing number of supermarkets, … Continue reading Organic Distribution & Retail Structure
Philip H. Howard 