From The April/May 2003 Issue of Natural Grocery Buyer

European Products on the Horizon

Lisa Everitt

When it comes to growth and innovation in organic and natural products, Europe leads North America by leaps and bounds.

European supermarket chains know organic and natural foods buyers skew higher in nearly every desirable demographic category: more education, more income and more highly developed tastes for specialty and luxury products. They spend more on groceries, and a battalion of companies chase those pounds and euros.

Organic products account for 38 percent of the baby food sold in the United Kingdom and 60 percent in Germany, says Simon Wright, an organics consultant from London. British upmarket supermarket chain Waitrose claims organics comprise 20 percent of its fresh produce sales. Total food sales attributed to organics ranged from 2 percent in the United Kingdom to 9 percent in Austria to 13 percent in Denmark.

Even a prince has gotten in on the organic act.

Now that the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Organic Program is in place, look for European natural foods trends to migrate to American retailers' shelves faster than ever. What's hot? Healthy and sustainably grown foods, eco-friendly laundry detergents, fair-trade products and meat-replacement products, to name four trends.

Mother Of Invention
Widespread acceptance of organics in Europe can be traced to a combination of politics, demographics and bad news.

In the European Union, agriculture and food business are much more politicized and their issues better publicized. While the USDA standards are less than 6 months old, the European Union first regulated organic food and drink production in 1991 and organic livestock production (including dairy) in 1999.

Food industry scandals have also boosted organics' cause. The meat industry, especially in Britain, has yet to recover from the bovine spongiform encephalopathy scare, aka mad cow disease. Genetically modified organisms also have become a huge political football, with one Scottish farmer going to jail for 12 days when he refused to identify in court protestors who'd allegedly vandalized a field of GM canola.

Organics have no less a champion in Great Britain than the heir to the throne. Prince Charles' food company, Duchy Originals, posted sales that were up 50 percent in 2002 to 14 million pounds ($21 million). The Prince of Wales has spoken out against genetically modified organisms and even suggested in 1996: "Perhaps BSE [mad cow] will come to be seen as one example, albeit a very expensive and damaging one, of how nature hits back when we violate her laws."

Small Is Beautiful
Most everything is smaller in Europe: homes, stores, cars. The cultural proclivity to shop for groceries nearly every day stems as much from lack of refrigerator space as from the need to buy only what you can carry home on the bus. As constraints on resources like water and petroleum become more common in the United States, either voluntarily or through shortages such as drought, market trends will migrate across the Atlantic, experts suggest.

Water-saving Asko and Miele laundry machines were developed to fit under the counters of closet-sized European kitchens. Detergents in concentrated formulations—tablets, poudre compacte or liquide hydractiv—quickly followed in recycled and recyclable packaging.

Tablet laundry detergents have captured more than 10 percent of the U.K. market since their launch in 1998, but despite the efforts of several soap giants, including Procter & Gamble's Tide and Unilever's Surf, the format has captured only a sliver of the U.S. market, according to Information Resources Inc. of Chicago. Marketed stateside as a convenience product, the tablets' proponents insist the format will catch on. Meanwhile, "liquid capsules" are the newest thing overseas.

Trends Jumping The Pond
Meat alternatives have gotten a huge boost in the United Kingdom and Europe thanks to health fears stemming from BSE. Marlow Foods Ltd., a wholly owned subsidiary of AstraZeneca, rolled out Quorn, a mycoprotein meat substitute, in early 2002 in the United States, offering four "chicken-style" products, a "turkey-style" roast, "beef-style recipe grounds," a fettuccine entrée and lasagna. By the end of the year, Quorn products had captured 10 percent of the poultry alternative market and were sold in more than 2,000 outlets nationwide, spokeswoman Trisha McGuire says. Quorn hopes to duplicate its European market dominance. There, more than 100 Quorn varieties—from Quorn dogs to Quorn Florentine—are available.

Another British company, Clipper Teas of Beaminster, Dorset, has made its name in organic and fair-trade products and now has fixed its eye on the U.S. market as well.

Founded in 1984 by master tea taster Michael Brehme, and his whole-foods-expert wife, Lorraine, the company has expanded from "a single chest of tea" to full lines of organic tea, coffee and instant hot chocolate with wide mainstream distribution in U.K. supermarkets, including Waitrose, Tesco and Sainsbury's.

"We have been investigating ways and means into the U.S. market," a spokeswoman said.

Lisa Everitt is a freelance writer in Arvada, Colo. She can be reached at lisa@well.com.