Trade

Natural and Organic Personal Care Market Expected to Grow

Trade Trade

The global natural and organic personal care market is expected to value around $21 million by the end of 2024.

Italian Organic Wine Exports Grow By 38%

Trade Trade

In 2015, Italian organic wine exports grew by 38% with sales worth 205 million Euro.

Organic marketing in China: Green & Safe in Shanghai

Trade Trade

The rapidly growing middle class in the mega-cities of China is increasingly health-conscious and can also afford to buy organic food. In Shanghai, the cool thing to do is, for example, to shop at Green & Safe or to eat out there. The store with its big restaurant reminds you in its concept and offer of the US-American Whole Foods Markets, and you find organic brands from the west on the shelves. Western food is in great demand in China. Shanghai has a number of organic delivery services as well. (All Photos by Karin Heinze)

Organic Soy Protein Market Worth 500.4 Million USD by 2021

Trade Trade

Because consumers become more and more aware of the advantages of organic soy-milk and the number of lactose-intolerances is growing, the demand for soy-based products is steadily increasing.

Brazil Landless Workers’ Movement opens Organic Food Store

Trade Trade

In São Paulo, Brazil, an initiative of Brazil’s Landless Workers’ Movement (MST) has opened an organic food store to increase access to healthy and ecological products.

General Mills in dairy deal with Organic Valley

Trade Trade

General Mills announced a new partnership with Organic Valley that will help 20 dairy farms add 3,000 acres of organic production over the next three years.

Organic-food competition hurts sales

Trade Trade

Whole Foods dominated the American market for organic food for a long time. Now, companies like Kroger  and Wal-Mart have increased their range of organic products drastically.

Germany’s large increase on organic growers

Trade Trade

Organic agriculture grew stably in Germany once again in 2015.

Coup in Turkey: impact on the organic industry

Trade Trade

Turkey is an important supplier of organic products. Many west European organic companies maintain close business relations with Turkey. The attempted coup and its consequences could therefore have far-reaching implications for the organic sector. Manufacturers and the trade should ensure that they are well prepared.

Video of the organic project Narköy.

China – one of the top 4 organic markets worldwide

Trade Trade

For years there were no official figures available for the organic market in the People's Republic of China, even though this huge country has for a long time been supplying a lot of organic products. According to the data we now have access to, catapulted China into fourth place in the worldwide ranking of organic markets. Karin Heinze has been travelling in China and at BioFach in Shanghai she spoke to the chairman of IFOAM-Asia Zhou Zheijang and Markus Arbenz, the managing director of IFOAM Organics International (Video and Gallery).

UK: Chocolate, a leading fair trade product

Trade Trade

Chocolate is seen as one of the fair trade movement’s biggest success stories. In recent years, three of the world’s biggest chocolate producers have made at least one of their iconic brands with fairtrade chocolate.

USA: organic farmers criticise corporation-dominated organic umbrella organization

Trade Trade

The Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association (OSGATA) has withdrawn from the Organic Trade Association (OTA) and severly criticised the position it adopted in the dispute about GMO labelling in the USA.

Logocos causing a commotion again – planning to sell denied

Trade Trade

Bio-Markt.Info reported last December that  Logocos AG belongs to a Swiss holding company whose owners wish to remain anonymous. The German Lebensmittelzeitung now writes that the current proprietors – among them a Kazakh oligarch  – want to sell Logocos AG. Marc Christian Wedekind, chairman of the supervisory board at Logocos, denied this categoriacally when bio-markt.info spoke to him.

Brexit – What's next?

Trade Trade

The British voted by a  small majority to exit the European Union. That has consequences for the wider economy and for the EU. The wholefood industry has so far shown itself to be not particularly worried. Can that be right? After the British decision to leave the EU companies in other industries set up crisis management teams or at least working groups to assess the impact, but in the  wholefood sector most firms are operating the principle of 'business as usual'. In fact, there are many questions to be addressed, and they affect the organic sector too.

BioFach India: buyers program and excursions

Trade Trade

Along with BioFach India - India Organic (BIIO) from 10 - 12 November 2016 in Delhi, again a buyer´s program and purchasing trip for organic stakeholders is offered by the International Competence Center of Organic Agriculture ICCOA.

Share price falls: KTG Agrar facing insolvency

Trade Trade

The listed agro-company KTG Agrar SE, one of the biggest growers of organic products, finds itself in a dramatic financial crisis. It was not able to pay the interest on a loan on time and many investors are already afraid the company is going bankrupt. As a consequemce, the share and bond prices of KTG Agrar have plunged. However, CEO Siegfried Hofreiter  assumes that they can get the situation under control.

Bitter aftertaste: Oxfam study of pineapple and banana cropping

Trade Trade

Conventional tropical fruit for German supermarkets is being produced under horrifying ecological and social conditions.This is the picture presented by the development organisation Oxfam in a report dealing with pineapple production in Costa Rica and banana production in Ecuador. Criticism is also directed at the Rainforest Alliance that certified several of the plantations under investigation.

German organic food market to cross 15 billion Euro by 2021

Trade Trade

According to a research report by TechSci, "Germany Organic Food Market By Type, Competition Forecast and Opportunities, 2011- 2021". Germany's average annual household net-adjusted disposable income per capita was $ 31,925 in 2015.

"Alnatura is a social experiment"

Trade Trade

Bees are buzzing and frogs are croaking in the grounds of the nature-based headquarters of Alnatura in Bickenbach (Hesse). And in the building belonging to one of the biggest organic companies in Germany there is much activity too. This where the  “working partnership“ develops ideas for new brand products, a 3D online shop and concepts for the store of the future. Founder Götz Rehn sees this collective activity as an “experiment on the way to a  social-organic model company“. 

In the Jungle of Labels

Trade Trade

The British market researcher Organic Monitor finds that over 10% of natural personal care products are now certified according to standards, corresponding to a market value of over USD 700 million.

US organic market achieves new record high

Trade Trade

In 2015, the market for organic products in the United States reached a new peak of  US$43.3bn (€39.6bn). This figure was revealed in an investigation by the Organic Trade Association (OTA), the US American manufacturers' association that carried out the study in collaboration with the Nutrition Business Journal in the first quarter of 2016.

USDA invested 1 billion into organic sector

Trade Trade

Statistics of the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) show that the US retail market for organic products is steadily growing an reached $39 billion last year.

Conventional food is considerably more expensive than organic food

Trade Trade

For a long time the organic industry has been having a discussion about so-called externalized costs. But far from all consumers are aware of the fact that the low price of food is achieved at a cost because of the chemicals used in agriculture, factory farming and the severe consequences for the environment. Or they put it to the back of their minds. It’s high time to tell people the truth. This is the reason why Volkert Engelsman, head of the Dutch organic company Eosta, has launched the information campaign “The True Cost of Food”. Organic supermarkets have started to promote the campaign. The background and a video interview with Volkert Engelsman.

Exclusive organic distribution agreement for the U.S. Market

Trade Trade

Organto Foods Inc. has joined forces with Fairtrasa, a Swiss based, leading producer of organic, fair trade products from small-scale farmers in Mexico, Peru, Colombia, Chile, Argentina and the Dominican Republic.

UK’s Organic farmers fear the exit of the EU

Trade Trade

The leading organic licensing body OF&G said being part of the EU gives organic businesses direct access to the world’s second largest organic market.