German organic market: sales barometer shows trend reversal

Growth in sales in Germany´s organic shops: consumers are buying more again. Photo © Karin Heinze

The development of sales in the German organic food specialist trade in the last four months shows a glimmer of hope for a turnaround: The specialist trade achieved for the year 2017 a modest increase of 1.4% in daily turnover. 

Sales are growing again

In 2015, daily sales in the German organic retail trade increased by 9.4%. Since then, sales are stagnating or declining. Growth of 1.3% was achieved in 2016 and by the summer of 2017, this weak development had intensified (minus 0.5% in January to September). A turnaround with higher growth rates has been evident since September: In the fourth quarter of 2017, daily turnover grew by 7% (participating companies in the barometer BioHandel sales).

Sales development in the types of business

Farm shops had the strongest growth of 2.3% in 2016, in 2017 they will achieve annual growth of 1.2%. The smaller organic specialty stores achieved an increase of 8.5% in 2015, and in 2016 they were able to keep their previous year's result close to the previous year's level (minus 0.1%). In the last quarter of 2017, these businesses continue to have the weakest performance of all business types, at plus 5.1%; they complete the full year 2017 with a black zero (plus 0.1%).

Organic supermarkets achieved an increase of 1.6% in 2016. In the fourth quarter of 2017, they achieved an increase of 7.6%, which gives them the best quarterly result and, at 1.8%, the best annual result of all specialty stores.

Chart Revenue Barometer 4th Quarter 2017

Authors: Karin Lösch and Klaus Braun, Kommunikationsberatung Klaus Braun