Many new organic consumers have little experience with the organic label and some shoppers think they’re buying organic when they’re actually not, experts say.
“The brand has outsized our actual influence in the marketplace,” said Laura Batcha, executive director of the Organic Trade Association, during the recent Organicology conference in Portland, Ore.
Market research shows that more than one-third of organic consumers have only been buying organic products in the past two years, she said.
This influx of new consumers raises questions about how to best market organic products, Batcha said.
Contrary to the stereotype of organic consumers being whiter, older and higher income than average, they actually tend to be younger and more racially diverse, she said.
“We are on trend with the future demographic of the United States,” Batcha said.
Younger organic buyers have characteristics that don’t reflect the habits of “seasoned” organic consumers, she said.
For example, older buyers are more committed to traditional organic retail channels, like food cooperatives, while younger people are “non-denominational” when it comes to shopping for organic products and will frequent mainstream grocery stores, Batcha said.
“They don’t attribute a lot of values to it in the same way,” she said.
Market data indicates that roughly 80 percent of families buy some organic food, just not very frequently, Batcha said.
It’s also likely that some consumers think other labels — like “natural” — connote organic methods, she said.
“Natural has a better frame of reference in our vocabulary,” Batcha said.
Nearly 60 percent of consumers say they look for the “natural” label when shopping for groceries, while less than 50 percent look for the “organic label,” according to a survey by the Consumers Union.
The “natural” label means a product contains no artificial ingredients but doesn’t have to be produced according to any farm practices regulated by the USDA.
Even so, many consumers assume the “natural” label encompasses organic standards enforced by USDA: roughly two-thirds believe “natural” food was produced without pesticides, antibiotics, growth hormones or genetically modified organisms, the survey said.
“Consumers are sometimes choosing natural because they think it means the same thing,” said Urvashi Rangan, director of consumer safety and sustainability for the Consumers Union.
This confusion can create a marketing conundrum.
Marketers prefer to present consumers with simple, uncomplicated messages, but if they “overdistill” the meaning of “organic” then it becomes prone to distortion, Rangan said. “The downside of that is you leave it open to misinterpretation,” she said.
Rangan said she doesn’t blame “label overload” for consumer uncertainty, since some certifications—such as “animal welfare approved”—can add value to the organic label by providing additional information.
The real problem is some claims and labels are meaningless or not credible, yet federal regulators don’t stop companies from using them even though it’s within their authority, she said.
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