Budapest: new stores invigorate the market

Despite the difficult economic situation in Hungary the organic market is growing, albeit at a low level. Interesting evidence of this development are several new specialist shops and a large store that have all opened in the last two years. Industry insiders estimate the market growth in Hungary to be 10-20 % a year. In Budapest the number of specialist wholefood shops is rising slowly but steadily.

Picture: Naturahaz near Budapest

In Hungary too, specialist shops are one of the best ways consumers can buy a wide organic product range. Biokultura’s website lists 16 wholefood shops in Budapest. Organic products in the conventional trade, if available at all, are limited to a very basic stock of mainly packaged goods. An example of a very well-run wholefood shop is Naturahaz (picture).

Naturahaz is the name of an attractive wholefood shop outside the gates of Budapest. Travelling west from the city centre you come to the affluent suburbs, one of which is Nagykovacsi that is about 15 km away and is home to 6000 people. Réka Váraljai (picture), who speaks perfect German, set up a wholefood shop there with 50 m² of floor space in August 2006. With lots of natural wooden shelves and curtains as in a doll’s house, you enter a cosy environment. You are pampered by classical music as you do your shopping. Together with her husband, the former journalist has paid great attention to detail and invested a considerable sum of money to completely reconstruct the lower floor of the two-storey house. A new floor had to be laid, with grey-brown tiles, refrigerators installed and counters, cupboards and wooden shelving bought or constructed.

The open cupboards and shelves hold an astounding 2500 articles, so that customers can choose from a complete range of food products, household cleaning materials, natural personal care, natural remedies and food supplements. Mrs Váraljai estimates that 80 % of food stocks come from organic agriculture. The rest of the stock consists mainly of conventional products from the region and diet products. Organic products are identified by green price labels. In January 2008, a product management system was introduced to make the daily routine a bit easier.

The shop now has three full-time employees and one part-timer, so that Mrs Váraljai, a mother of two, has less to do and more time for child rearing. Nevertheless, she would like to see a big increase in the 50-60 customers a day. In the shop there is a little play area for customers’ children (picture).

The organic market in Hungary continues to be characterised by the export of raw materials and the import of processed organic products. This unfavourable situation is conducive to very high consumer prices in Hungary. Consequently, the prices for organics are much higher than for conventional food products in the supermarkets. The organic shops simply do not have enough customers, and the people operating them do not have an adequate income. They urgently need greater quantities of home-produced and more affordable goods, but potential suppliers are continuing to hold back because the volumes that could be sold still appear to them to be too small. (Picture: a big product range in a small space at Naturahaz)

On the other hand, there is a boom in sales at the weekly market in the south of Budapest. Here customers can get a full range of fresh food direct from the producer. About 100 producers sell their produce here and, since they have covered stalls, this organic market can be held all the year round, with the natural brown wood used in their construction giving it all a harmonious appearance. The Saturday market occupies the car park of a cultural centre in the 12th District of Budapest (Hegyvidék Müvelodesi Központ) behind the MOM Park Shopping Centre. The market is operated by the Hungarian Farming Association Biokultura. The addresses of weekly markets in Hungary can be found on the organisation’s English websites.

According to FiBL, 123 000 ha, representing 3 % of total agricultural land, are being farmed organically by 1400 producers in Hungary. Around 350 processors and five importers are registered with Biokontroll Hungaria, the regulatory organisation that oversees the majority of farms. The turnover of the retail organic trade is estimated by those directly involved to be four billion Forint (60 million Euros). Biokultura also supplies a list of manufacturers and processors in Hungary plus a comprehensiveup-to-date list of products by Hungarian manufacturers.

Hungary has two regulatory organisations – Biokontroll and Öko-Garancia. 

(All the pictures were made available by Réka Váraljai)