There is no argument about the fact that organic fruit and vegetables have moved from being a niche market to a mainstream contender, available to a lesser or greater degree on most multiples’ shelves.
However, the most recent annual report from the Soil Association reflects the fact that the category has been trapped in an eddy and is now looking for ways to not only bring consumption back to its previous level, but also increase its attraction to a wider customer base.
The good news at least is that organics sold through the established box schemes seem to have weathered the storm and still offer signs of growth, although their proportion must be miniscule compared to the emporiums in and outside the high street where the majority of the population shops.
The reasons for the deterioration are probably twofold. First, there are only a finite number of people who believe, and will always believe, that organics are healthier and taste better, even if it is more difficult to prove. These numbers may have already reached a peak.
Second, there are those shoppers who generally may acquiesce, but are not sufficiently supportive to be prepared to pay a premium at a time when their cash is getting shorter and shorter, and cheaper alternatives are in profusion.
This may have been recently compensated for by the general retail strategy of offering bargain basement prices, from which organics have not been immune. But the danger is that the premium that organic growers still need will vanish like the morning dew on a field of cabbage.
Another factor is that while there are very few examples of fruit and vegetables being related to some form of social divide, there may be some truth that organics are considered a luxury. The same argument could have been put forward when pineapples first arrived in the UK, and far more recently, avocados. The reasons in both cases were price and ignorance about the product from a nation which then was also conservative about its diet.
Today, if only judged by the mass of popular cookery programmes, endless recipes, ethnic influences and holidays abroad, there is a completely different situation.
But this interest in food has also spawned constant and often confusing reports about what is good or bad for you, to which can be added the endless debate over GM foods and pesticide reduction.
There are plans to establish an Organic Month in September, which is an ideal moment to come up with a new, easily understood, sensible, no-frills message to bring the sector back on track - provided the momentum is then maintained.
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