C A L I F O R N I A
Vegetables A SPECIAL GROWERS’ REPORT OF AG ALERT ®
®
Mixed leaf lettuce grows in a sprawling Central Coast field formerly cultivated by Earthbound Farm. The company started with backyard berries, then built national demand for its organic salads.
Organic produce demand outgrows niche markets ByBob Johnson
in the U.S. and Canada, with large growers such as Driscoll’s, Tanimura & Antle, Taylor Farms, JV Smith andBraga Fresh. Twiceayear, at conferencesheldinMonterey, thegroupbrings togethermore than1,500 representatives fromthese firms andmany others. At its conference last month, delayed from July, Organic Produce Network officials detailed the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on produce sales. In short, the crisis caused supermarket produce sales, conventional and organic, to soar. The trendwas fueled by a collapse in restaurant business and a surge of people cooking at home. During the recovery, however, conventional produce sales in supermarkets have since declined. But organic produce sales have only continued to increase. “Organic fresh produce sales and volume in the second quarter of 2021 continued to showyear-over-year growthdespite the fact that the secondquarter of last yearwaswhen the COVIDpandemic shutteredmost food-service outlets, causing supermarket sales to soar,” saidMatt Seeley, co-founder andCEOof the network. “By contrast, conventionally grown fresh produce sales and volume declined.” In the secondquarter of 2021, he said, “conventional produce sawdollar salesdecrease by 3.3%and volume by 8.6%compared to the same period a year ago.” Meanwhile, decades of steady growthhave takenorganicproduce fromrural farmstands
Thirty-seven years ago, Drew and Myra Goodman moved out West fromNew York, leased21/2acres in theCarmel Valley, thenstill affordable, andstartedEarthboundFarm by restoring to organic production the heirloom raspberries in the backyard. Just short of three decades later, Earthbound Farm sold for $600million. By then, that backyardoperationhadgrown intoamajor firmthat shippedorganicproduce from50,000 acres of farmland. Its leafy green salads had become signature items in produce depart- ments atmainstreamsupermarkets across America. TheEarthboundstoryunderscores theconsistently robust growth that organicproduce has enjoyedsince theearlydays, when itwas availableonly at natural foodstores, farmers markets, community-supported agriculture programs and farmstands like the one the Goodmans once operated in the Carmel Valley. In the second quarter of 2021 alone, national organic fresh produce sales totaled $2.3 billion—a4%percent increaseover the sameperiod in2020. Third-quarter results, report- ed inOctober, also totaled $2.3 billion—up 3.4% from2020. That’s according to thequarterly report of retail sales by theOrganic ProduceNetwork. Thenetworkwas createda littleover four yearsago, inspiredby theexponential expansion of organic farming production and increasing produce demand. These days, the Organic Produce Network connects retailers such as Albertsons, Walmart, Costco, Amazon andWhole Foods and nationwide networks of independents
See ORGANIC, Page 8
November 3, 2021 Ag Alert 7
Powered by FlippingBook