Coop: increase of in sales of organic food

The Swiss grocer Coop reported an increase of 19 percent in sales of organic food in 2018. The Swiss Federal Office for Agriculture also published positive figures - for organic cheese.

After Migros, Coop is the second largest food retailer in Switzerland and the market leader for organic food. According to BioSuisse, the more than 900 Coop stores in 2017 accounted for 44 percent of total Swiss organic food sales. Coop is likely to have increased this share even further in 2018. The company announced that its turnover with organic products had grown by 19.1% to 1.7 billion Swiss francs. However, this figure (in contrast to BioSuisse) is likely to include the wholesale and manufacturing activities of the Coop Group as well as the retail business. It is noteworthy that despite this organic growth, sales in the Coop supermarkets increased by only 0.8 percent.

Higher sales of organic cheese in Switzerland

The figures for cheese published by the Swiss Federal Office for Agriculture (BLW) also show that organic growth is accompanied by declines in the conventional sector. According to these figures, sales of organic cheese in the Swiss retail sector grew by a total of 20.8 percent between 2016 and 2018, while purchases of conventional cheese fell by 1.1 percent. The most popular organic varieties were Mozzarella and Gruyere. In total, organic cheese in Switzerland accounted for 6.0 percent of total sales in 2018 and 7.9 percent of total sales. As in Germany, carrots are far more successful in terms of quantity. According to BLW, one in five Ruebli now comes from organic cultivation.

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