Ireland’s Organic Industry Must Grow!

In the most western country in the euro zone, people sometimes have a different idea of time. Certainly, the country has been experiencing an economic boom for a decade - a boom that is reflected, for example, in many new detached houses - but the organic sector has remained largely untouched by this upswing in the economy.  Modern specialist wholefood shops, or even organic supermarkets with a good proportion of fresh food, are thin on the ground in Ireland.

Picture: Green Irish landscape

Since Ireland has only 3.7 million inhabitants, the food market is quite small. About 130 whole food stores, that mostly resemble health food shops,  can be found all over the country. Most of the wholefood shops are quite small, with around 30 to 80 m² of floor space. The major part of the product range consists of food supplements and natural remedies, and these often account for 50 % of turnover and  shopping area. These shops also sell a limited packaged goods range, with dried fruit, muesli, juices, spreads and bread, cakes and pastries. There is usually no sign of fresh food such as fruit, vegetables, dairy products, milk or fresh bread cakes and pastries. The shop owners give several reasons for this state of affairs. They state that  demand has been insufficient, and there is no continuity of supply by the manufacturers and wholesalers.

Aidan Kelly (picture) opened  his store Healthwise in Galway in 1978 -  one of the first stores of its kind in Ireland - and after several painful attempts to sell fruit and vegetables, he introduced his  fruit box scheme. Once a week, after pre-payment of nine Euros, fruit is ready to be collected by a fairly small number of customers. The next stage was vegetables. Mr Kelly stated recently that demand for this box scheme had been fairly constant. He thinks it would probably be better if customers could buy as they require, instead of ordering in advance, but shortage of space is a problem. By now, 23 to 30 % of his sales are organic and he has seen an increase in the sale of chilled organic food. However, apart from organic eggs, nothing is sourced locally. Mr Kelly has found that awareness of organic foods has greatly increased, although people still ask what organic means. He is of the opinion that there would be better awareness if the Irish government and Bord Bia (the Food Board) promoted the production of organic food more. He was particularly disappointed by the Irish stand at last year’s BioFach.

Whereas mostly single stores belong to the people running them, there are also some owners with several small outlets. For example, Derek and Yvonne Kelly have four branches of The Health Store (picture) in Dublin. As in many other countries, the range does not consist only of organic products. Estimates show that only around 60 % of food products originate from regulated organic agriculture. Dried fruits, grains and diet products are often produced conventionally. Sometimes the customer has to read the small print on the back of products to find out whether the ingredients are actually organic or not.

Although the interior of Irish health stores is usually not very impressive in terms of their product ranges or layout - they have all the charm of health food shops in the 1970s - the outside makes a good impression. Colourful shop fronts, attractive wood facades, flower arrangements and wall paintings are often very attractive and catch the eye.

Evergreen: an organic supermarket in Galway

Surprisingly, Ireland’s largest wholefood store is not located in Dublin, with its one million inhabitants, but in the town on the west coast. Galway, with 60.000 inhabitants, is the centre of Connemara, a tourist area with lovely countryside in the west of Ireland. It was here that Evergreen, that now has five specialist stores, celebrated  its tenth anniversary in the autumn of 2003. One of its health food stores is located in the town centre pedestrian area, two others are in shopping centres.

The biggest Irish store was opened eight years ago near the busy entrance to the Galway shopping centre (picture). From the passage leading into the shopping centre, you can look through a glass wall into the whole shop. As you enter the shopping centre, you have the organic supermarket on your left, and you go right to Tesco.

The door stands open the whole day to prevent people feeling reluctant to go in.  This specialist wholefood store is well lit with fluorescent lamps; the shelves are made of wood and create a sophisticated and pleasant natural ambience. At the top of  each set of shelves is a sign indicating the product group, and this makes it easy to find the various ranges. So, with the clear layout, the customer has no difficulty in finding his way round. People of normal height can easily see over the free-standing shelves.

The two owners, Kieran and Aideen Hurley (picture), have a helpful homepage on the internet that provides customers with recipes, product information and tips (http://www.evergreen.ie). They even produce a monthly newsletter that is sent free of charge to interested customers.

As in the case of the other Irish health (food) stores, a large part of the stock in the 200 m² shopping area consists of natural remedies, homeopathic remedies, food supplements, aroma therapy and sports nutrition. There are, of course, many skincare products and cosmetics on sale too. However, in contrast to other stores, Evergreen has fresh products on sale, even though they are small-scale compared with German whole food stores. Since most of the fruit and vegetables (picture) have to be imported in fairly small quantities from France and Spain, the prices are high. For this reason, demand naturally lags a long way behind expectations. At Evergreen, fruit and vegetables are kept in cold compartments where they stay fresh and can therefore be on sale somewhat longer. Evergreen has a total of three large cold compartments, which is much more than the average for stores in Ireland.

Organic Supermarkets Are What The Country Needs

The pioneering spirit in respect of wholefood seems to be missing in Ireland. Jack Irvin (picture) is a member of the Irish Association of Health Stores and, as one of the first store owners in Dublin, has been running his shop Down to Earth since 1975. He is familiar with the wholefood supermarkets Planet Organic and Fresh and Wild in London, and he considers them to be an interesting development. However, he freely admits that he has seven children to look after and that playing golf is much more fun than starting up more shops. This approach seems to be symptomatic in a situation where people prefer to look back at what has been achieved in the last two decades rather than recognising a new emerging market and offering what people want.

A young generation of well educated eco-entrepreneurs willing to invest ought to jump at the chance to create new, attractive stores and to fill them with life. In the meantime, a further trend seems to be emerging: purely organic shops. This is nothing special in Germany but in Ireland this has been and still is a rare development. Some time ago, the Organic Shop opened in Cork on Ireland’s south coast. The owner, Marc O’ Mahony, keeps mainly fresh products. He produces most of the vegetables himself on his farm, as David Storey reported in the organic magazine “Organic Matters“. Mr O’ Mahony gets all his organic meat from Ireland and not by importing.

Ireland: Food Retail Trade With Organic Fresh Food Is Gaining Ground

At the moment, it looks as if the specialist health food trade wants to leave selling fresh food to the increasing number of  markets, delivery services and, above all, the conventional retail food outlets. The Irish supermarket chain Dunnes Stores (picture) ran 123 stores in 2002 and employed 18.000 people. Of these 108 were in the Irish Republic and Northern Ireland, the rest being in  England and Spain. In most of the stores, organic fruit and vegetables  are sold but they account for only one to two metres of shelf space. The organic produce can usually be easily located; sometimes there are hanging signs in the vegetable departments indicating where organic items are to be found.

In 2001, the chain Superquinn doubled its sales of organic fresh food. Over 200 organic articles are on sale. According to Superquinn, the turnover of organics had been rising by 100 % annually since their introduction in 1999.  The Tesco supermarket chain also has a branch in many Irish towns. This chain, too, doubled its organic turnover in two years, and Tesco  keeps an increasing stock of organic products. The annual increase in demand of 30 % in the organic sector  is benefiting  mainly the conventional retail trade because of a lack of alternative outlets. (Picture: a hiker is refreshed by Irish organic yoghurt)

Organic Agriculture in Ireland has Development Potential

A surprising fact is that there are few organic gardeners in Ireland. The lack of organic fruit and vegetables cannot be blamed on the climate, which is mild and enjoys abundant rainfall. The explanation lies in the generally low level of organic awareness in agriculture, that created a situation where only 0.7 % of agricultural land was converted to organic cropping. In 1999, there were 1058 organic farms in Ireland that cultivated 32.500 ha. Thus the Irish government  introduced a plan to remedy this state of affairs, and  its aim was to convert 3 % of land by 2006. In 2000, the Agriculture Minister set up the Organic Development Committee to draw up recommendations for developing organics. This Committee comprised representatives from a broad spectrum of 22 organisations. Up to 2006, eight million Euros were earmarked for organic development. There were to be regular checks to ensure the plan was being implemented. One of many recommendations was that the organic department in the Ministry of Agriculture should have an up-to-date website to disseminate information. However, individual negative reactions to operations by the Organic Development Committee can  be found on the website of the magazine “Organic Matters” (http://www.organicmatters.com).

Ireland’s Health Food Industry: Representative Body

The Irish Association of Health Stores (IAHS) was founded in 1986 with a dozen stores and now has 75 members running about 100 health stores. Around 30 other stores are not members. The IAHS organises a three day trade fair in October (Your Health Show) in Dublin with sections specifically for the public and  specialist trade visitors. The IAHS offers its members regular further training courses to maintain at a high level the quality of advice given to customers. The objectives of the Irish Association of Health Stores are laid down in a code of ethics which, among other things, defines the standard required of the training for shopkeepers and their employees.

Further information:

Irish Organic Farmers & Growers Association (IOFGA)
Including addresses of organic guesthouses and information on farm visits
http://www.irishorganic.ie

The magazine “Organic Matters”
http://www.organicmattersmag.com

Address list of health  food shop in Ireland
http://www.active-health.org