US organic food sales could reach £100 billion within a decade, as the sector benefits from its position “at the nexus of strong consumer trends and human and planetary health priorities”, Tom Chapman co-CEO of the Organic Trade Association (OTA) told delegates at the Biofach Congress earlier this week.
But the US organic leader admitted that there is currently uncertainty about political support for organic. “Unfortunately, we have not yet passed the Farm Bill, which is the tool that Congress uses to set agricultural policy within the US … and we are not sure yet, after the recent election, what support for organic will look like.”
Presenting data from the latest OTA Organic Market Report, Chapman said that 2024 represented a “return to strong growth” after the recovery years after the pandemic. The organic market grew by 5.2% in 2024 to be worth $71.5 billion. He noted there are now 20 organic subcategories each with annual sales in excess of $1 billion.
Significantly, organic sales grew at two times the rate of the conventional market, which grew by 2.5% over the same period. Chapman also noted that “when you look at compound growth over the decade we see a healthy 6.1% for organic”. When inflation is factored in to the analysis of 10 year market performance, a further differentiation is seen. Chapman explained: “With organic we have seen seen the ups and downs of the pandemic, and then a progressive return to normalcy. But if you look at the total market you see, frankly, the opposite trend, with distinct headwinds and where most of its growth has been inflation-based for those years”.
He continued: “So in America we are up optimistic about how the market is looking, and at some very encouraging trends. One of those being being generational changes, with the younger generations prioritising organic. Organic is in an exciting place, sitting at this Nexus point between strong consumer trends, and personal health and planetary health. And we are forecasting that in less than a decade organic sales in the US will be over $100 billion.”
In the Q&A session, Chapman was asked by a representative of the United Nations development organisation whether he “foresaw any problems arising from a lack of labour from the mass deportations promised by the Trump Administration?”.
He said: “One of the reasons organic does not have a higher land mass in the US is because of the cost of production, and labour is one of them. It is an issue in the US for farming, both conventional and for organic – but we do use a higher percentage of labour in organic. We were concerned about the state of labour, the availability of labour, and cost of labour, prior to this dministration and this Administration’s policies. But it’s too soon – it’s been just three weeks – to tell what effect this is going to have on the American organic landscape”.