New sales figures of Ecological food products has come out in Sweden for 2016 and sales or ecological (organic farmed and produced) products increased by some 18% in Sweden last year. Actually this is less then we expected and the best selling ecological food product is wine. Last year in Sweden the sales revenue for organic made food products was over 25 billion SEK representing close to 9% of the total food sales revenue in Sweden. This is figures from Ekoweb and 25 billion SEK is approximately 2.7 billion USD today not including hospitality and hotels.
The best selling organic (ecological) products sold 2016 was milk (1), wine (2), bananas (3), eggs (4), fresh spices (5), coffee (6), butter and fat (7), yoghurt (8), processed baby food (9) and cream based products (10). So consumers will look for milk, eggs, butter, yoghurt, baby food and cream based products made in Sweden but if you want to export the products to look for are wine, other drinks, fruit, vegetables and spices if we follow today’s consumer behavior. For example ecological wine increased some 33% in 2016.
Last year we estimated that the total food market is just over 40 billion USD in Sweden including hospitality and hotels. We estimate the total figure for organic food products to be around 6 billion USD for the whole of Scandinavia 2016 and that might have been slightly too much as the final figure will land somewhere between 5.5 to 6 billion USD but it will continue to grow. According to retailers sales could have been even greater if the supply of products suited to demand better and if retailers could offer more ”nice price” but still ecological.
Another force to drive sales is that government bids and tenders are asking for more ecological food in schools and homes for the elderly. This is also helping organic food to grow in Sweden and in Scandinavia. All this means there are also good business opportunities and profits if you can solve the challenges with an effective and cost efficient supply chain to a consumer in Scandinavia. Besides organic farmed products, fair traded is a must if you want to challenge current supply chain. Part of our business model is also to assist the development for fair traded business in our market.
We are a business consulting firm and work with international business development. Most of our work have been within high-tech but we also work with traditional retail and agricultural, especially food or food related products. If you are interested in growing organic food business by sourcing in South East Asia, Africa, or growing your export to Scandinavia, we can help you. If you want to contact us directly for a discussion or arrange a meeting, please send a request to us today.