A new report from Sweden shows how retailers can use smart tactics to get consumers to choose organic – even in times of rising prices.

The report – Nudging for organic in store 2023 – is published this week by Organic Sweden and is based on on a series of store experiments that were carried out last autumn. The organic advocacy group worked with the supermarket chain ICA Sweden on the initiative, while behavioural agency Beteendelabbt conducted and analyzed the experiments.

The project involved testing a range of behaviour-changing tools, so-called nudging, in real-world settings. The findings show that approaches such as ‘positive reinforcement’ in combination with ‘creative value-added messages’ can have a major impact on sales. 

Important lever
Commenting on the findings, Anton Järild, communications strategist at Organic Sweden, said: “Our report shows that stores with relatively simple measures such as actively thanking their customers, or showing the benefits of choosing organic, can increase sales by as much as 83 percent. These are results indicate that nudging is an important lever in the work towards more sustainable food consumption.”

During the store experiments, which were carried out in six ICA stores, different messages about the advantages of organic were tested in combination with the strapline ‘Thank you for being eco-heroes’ on six different products. Among the products tested during the experiments, Saltå Kvarn’s organic oatmeal and Arla’s organic milk stand out. Sales of these products increased by 83 and 27 percent, respectively. Organic eggs from Lantägg, Bärta Burger Umami, organic falu sausage from Scan and organic carrots from I Love Eco also took part in the store experiments.

“The report points out that the keys to increasing organic sales are out there, but that we need to test and evaluate different tools to find out what really works. Therefore, we are extra grateful to our ICA dealers who have been open to testing new communicative approaches,” says Maria Gustavsson, head of innovation & development at ICA Sweden

“Every carrot, milk and egg package, oatmeal bag or sausage you choose that is organic is an investment in a sustainable food production that gives us more biodiversity, clean water, living soils and better animal welfare in return,” says Charlotte André, CEO of Organic Sweden.

The store experiments and the are part of the Nudging Organic project. In Sweden, the project is supported by Arla Foods, Dava Foods, ICA Sweden, HKScan, Saltå Kvarn and Swedish Temptations.

About the project
Nudging Organic is a three-year project that aims to increase sales of organic food by developing new innovative methods to drive sustainable behavior change in stores. Behind the initiative are Organic Sweden and the organic industry organizations Pro Luomo in Finland, Bionext in the Netherlands and BioForum in Belgium. The project is financed to most of the EU.