With the general increase in prices, especially food prices, it seems more appropriate for the French consumer not to make a fine mouth. In this case, a shopping basket, according to the latest figures released by the Organic Agency at a press conference on Thursday, includes less and less products from organic farming. A decline from 6.4% to 6% in 2022, which precisely illustrates the contraction in demand eroded by the decline in purchasing power.
200 organic stores have closed
The share of organic in purchases is falling in a context of "unprecedented decline" in household household food consumption (which itself fell by 5.1%). As a result, sales of organic products for home consumption, which represent 92% of the sector's outlets, in value terms, fell by 4.6% last year to €12 billion.
"The biggest drop is in the 3,000 organic stores, with a drop in footfall and nearly 200 closures," said Laure Verdeau, the agency's director in charge of developing and promoting this mode of agriculture. Their sales fell by 8.6%, and those of large retailers by 4.6%. In 2021, sales of organic products for home consumption (supermarkets, farm outlets, etc.) had already fallen by 1.4%, a first decline not seen since 2010.
Conversely, the 26,000 organic farms, "which combine organic and local, are growing," added Laure Verdeau, with sales up 3.9%. Sales of organic products for out-of-home consumption increased by 17% in 2022, the first year of full activity for restaurants after the Covid-19 pandemic.
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The share of organic food remains stable in collective catering with 7% of purchases, still far from the 20% target set in 2018 in the Egalim law, and falls from 2% to 1% in commercial catering, for which "everything remains to be done" according to Laure Verdeau. "The market is driven as much by supply in the fields as by demand on plates," she commented, stressing the "urgent" need to boost consumption.
To help organic farming through this growth crisis, the Minister of Agriculture announced in mid-May a "crisis envelope" endowed with 60 million euros. By way of comparison, the share of organic products exceeds 10% in shopping carts in other European countries such as Denmark or Austria, which have "very voluntarist" policies.
