Consumers Drive Organic Mainstream

By Laurie Demeritt


Organic may finally have shed its 1960-ish counterculture image as an increasing number of mainstream consumers and supermarkets across North America embrace “all things organic.” Perhaps the greatest influence on this continuing trend is that the word “organic” has become synonymous with “health” and “healthier lifestyle.”

Almost every consumer pursues some form of health and wellness, and the number of consumers who are taking actions to lower their health risks and prevent disease is on the rise. More than three-fourths of consumers are actively seeking healthier food options: 76% in 2005, up from 52% in 2000. This means more consumers are willing to partner with organic brands and companies that help them achieve their health and wellness aspirations.

Consumers will continue to lead the way to the growth in demand for organics. In the grocery store, a growing number of consumers—close to 10% in 2005 compared with half that number in 2000—agree with the statement: “If organic produce isn’t available, I don’t buy any produce.” And, their quest for organics will not be restricted to the supermarket. The complex realities of everyday life draw consumers away from their homes as an increasing number of activities and responsibilities take them to a wide array of new channels. The number of available, convenient food options within and outside of grocery stores is increasing rapidly.

Consumers in search of food are now less constrained when shopping, are more inclined to “shop fresh organic” and are increasingly likely to shop outside of traditional grocery stores. Shopping daily is now actually more convenient and better suited to active lifestyles. Consumers who have a strong preference to eat organic foods at home also now look for fresh, natural, organic ingredients on menus when eating out.

The question is, will these trends continue to grow and evolve, or will they quietly fade away? Consumers will be the only ones to tell. That is the thing about trends, they are much like consumers themselves: unpredictable and difficult to interpret correctly.

Being closely immersed alongside consumers, observing life as it happens, makes it possible to spot emerging trends and monitor established trends. However, many companies take a ‘wait and see’ approach to trends. Sure, hindsight is 20-20, making trend spotting that much easier. The risk to this approach, however, is that if you sit around and wait too long, competitors and consumers will pass your company by—fast.

The market is driven by what people want. We believe in the value of charting trends as long as the observations are firmly grounded in everyday interactions with ordinary consumers, the sort of observations that arise from face-to-face, person-to-person exchanges. In this way, we have the ability to reconcile the seemingly contradictory elements of how consumers live, shop and use organic products. Here, then, is a sampling of trends with clear implications for organic manufacturers.

Expansion of Private Labels
The surge in consumer confidence and interest in private label packaged foods is predisposing more and more consumers to experiment in ever-more categories of private label, organic packaged foods. For quite some time now, consumers have been looking for ways to incorporate more organic packaged foods into their everyday food regimens that don’t demand a near constant price premium. Until recently, even committed organic consumers perceived a high cost, rightly or wrongly, as a barrier to converting most of the grocery stream into the category.

To manage perceived cost premiums, consumers increasingly seek-out packaged organic foods at channels they associate with bargain shopping, such as Costco, Trader Joe’s and mainstream grocers, and will continue to do so. As private label organic foods spread across channels, gateways to the category will proliferate. Word-of-mouth concerning Trader Joe’s, especially, is increasing confidence in the taste of organic packaged foods among consumers, sending many back to the center store with renewed hope that there is not necessarily a “bad taste” trade-off for switching to organic products.

Consumers Rely on “Authenticity”
Authenticity will play a greater role in helping consumers gauge the value of organic products and experiences. When consumers shop for food and beverages, they look at a variety of product characteristics. These characteristics range from brand familiarity to product expiration date to ingredients and growing methods. Authenticity allows consumers to naturalize otherwise arbitrary distinctions between comparable products and experiences. It is a sense that the distinction in question is justified because it represents the “organic way”–the natural way things are supposed to be done.

We all know, for example, that it is purely happenstance that many prefer shoes by Manolo Blahnik and accessories by Prada. Likewise, we’re aware of the possibility that our interest may be driven largely out of appeals to status and, hence, appear motivated out of pretense. But should we opt for specialized shoes or accessories that are construed as authentic (e.g., Levi’s, Timberlands), the distinction becomes much easier to justify, much more palatable, much more real. This explains in part, or in whole, the widespread appeal of companies such as Amy’s Kitchen and Stonyfield Farm.

There is significant—and always intensifying—cynicism with regard to conventional marketing tactics. Contrary to this, one of the most significant elements of Amy’s Kitchen’s success can be attributed to emotional and relevant narrative-based marketing. Remarkably, most consumers who purchase Amy’s products easily recall that the company was named after the owner’s daughter and created in response to frustrations with available “convenience” foods (both vegetarian and organic or natural).

Consumers appreciate and emotionally respond to Amy’s expressed “authentic” values of home-cooked foods, attention to family and healthier convenience options.

Similarly, consumers rely on the authenticity of Stonyfield Farm natural and organic dairy products and the fact that they are made without the use of preservatives, artificial flavors, antibiotics, synthetic hormones or pesticides, to differentiate between comparable products. Stonyfield utilizes the critical elements of place, people and community in establishing its authenticity claims. Because they are credible, authenticity claims make it possible for companies like Stonyfield to justify price premiums.

Amy’s Kitchen and Stonyfield Farm are examples of how consumers are reappropriating elements from the past (values) and integrating them into today’s world. Their rich narratives establish an emotional bond with the consumer that can surpass conventional product benefits.

Aroma Drives Organic Body Care Trend
The amazing growth in the natural and organic body care category is likely to continue to be fueled by something other than what analysts and pundits would have you believe is a tightly logical aversion to chemicals in mainstream body care. While consumers have begun to attribute superior functional benefits to many natural and organic body care products (e.g., “Avalon organics shampoo doesn’t strip my hair coloring”), a purely rational aversion to toxins and chemicals is not the most powerful driver of this trend.

Everyday body care products offer one of the more powerful, multi-sensory user experiences in the world of organic consumer packaged goods. Aroma, texture and color all play a role in how consumers shop and use in this category. In fact, although at first it might seem to be the most trivial aspect of body care, aroma stands out as the critical dimension of the body care user experience. So, the real driver in the natural and organic body care category is actually a sort of amateurish aromatherapy conducted both in retail stores through idle browsing and through trendy rotation of body care products simply to play with scent.

If you’ve ever wandered into a L’Occitane store, you’ve seen one of the more trendy orientations to body care retail around. Based on natural aromatherapy, each product gallery features a distinct scent profile across all major body care functional formats (shampoo, conditioner, skin exfoliant, etc.). Be it lavender or chamomile or lemon verbena, the olfactory experience is truly amazing for first-time visitors who revel in the notion of shopping first for an aroma and then for a function.

It’s amazing that it took body care manufacturers and retailers so long to realize that, for years, consumers have been sniff-sampling personal care products in the aisles of grocery stores and drugstores. This has been the primary shopping criterion for a long time, yet mainstream brands have continued to churn out the same pungent scents year after year. Wellness consumers today demand pleasant smelling body care products. They rotate through scent profiles whimsically to have more fun with body care. Importantly, though, what was pleasant smelling in the 1980s no longer satisfies these consumers. The “naturalness” of a natural scent is less about its objective origin or source than it is about wellness consumers’ collective image of what a naturally occurring scent should be. Marketing research has shown that a scent should be: subtle, complex, not pungent, not heavy, and not strongly fruity (i.e., berry scented).

Organic body care brand-building is less about the purity of composition for mainstream wellness consumers as it is about exciting, subtle scent profiles, lingering aromatic signatures associated with “natural” body care, and aromatic profiles of the brand that they can carry around with them for hours.

The Mainstreaming of Organic
While organic products and ingredients will continue to grow in number and popularity, organic, as a concept, is showing signs of losing its distinction among consumers. Organic is on the threshold of becoming the next “natural”—that is, an overused, genericized term. An increase in cross-pollination between health and wellness organic segments and foodie/gourmet is further diluting the organic platform. As a result, we expect greater awareness of branding in the organic domain.

Laurie Demeritt is President and COO of The Hartman Group, a leading consulting and market research firm. The Hartman Group specializes in the analysis and interpretation of consumer lifestyles and how these lifestyles affect the purchase and use of health and wellness products and services. Their client base includes Fortune 500 consumer goods companies and mass and natural food retailers. Reach her at laurie@hartman-group.com.