UK: Soil Association's Organic September campaign lifts sales

The Soil Association's annual Organic September campaign has delivered a strong boost to the organic market, confirming further that the UK organic market is back into good growth with positive figures since the start of 2013, the Soil Association reports. Results show that for the 4 weeks to 28 September versus the 4 weeks to 31 August 2013 there was a sales increase of close to +9% and an absolute increase of £7.9m (€9.4m) to the sector. September 2013 versus September 2012 showed an increase of 2%, the highest year on year increase for many months. Many categories such as tea, cereals, yoghurts and poultry were showing exceptional growth and were far outperforming the non-organic products in these categories (Data from Nielsen).
 

The Small Changes, Big Difference campaign ran for the month of September in partnership with independent, online and national retailers. This year, the Soil Association focused on communicating the campaign through the independent retailer sector: this sector has remained strong throughout the last few years and maintained a very personal relationship with their customers. A recent Soil Association survey, to evaluate the campaign, confirmed that 95% of the independent shops who sell organic products were aware of the Small Changes campaign. The majority of respondents agreed that September achieved a similar uplift to last year with many reporting increases between 5-15%.

 
Soil Association