Editor's note: In what we plan to make an annual end-of-year tradition, RetailWire has compiled a list of the most significant retail industry "Turning Points" of 2008. (See our news release...) What follows is the second of a series of 12 discussions based on the list.
Picture this: A young boy at the dining room table is pushing around the peas on his plate with a fork and looking none too happy.
After watching this for several minutes, his father says, "Eat your peas."
The boy looks up and says, "I don't like these. I want the kind we used to get."
The father, visibly upset, throws down his napkin on the table and yells, "You'll eat your peas with pesticides and like them. When I was a boy we never had organic peas. They put all sorts of stuff on our food and we turned out alright."
Okay, obviously joking here, and conventional foods haven't been scientifically proven to be any less nutritional or safe than organics. But, it's becoming increasingly clear watching Whole Foods struggle and consumers reign in spending that organic foods have become a casualty of the rotten economy. Sales of organics are still on the climb but no longer at the pace of recent years.
Julie Hennessey, a consumer from West Bloomfield, Mich., told The Associated Press that she used to buy more organic fruits and vegetables. Now, she said, she buys conventional (and cheaper) strawberries and spends a little more time washing them off.
According to NPD Group, the number of people who buy organic products fell four percent in August of this year compared to the same period the year before.
Still, it isn't all doom and gloom for organics. The Organic Trade Association has forecast annual sales increases of 18 percent for organic foods through 2010.
Discuss Question: What are the near-term prospects of organic foods at retail? What do you see for the longer term? Is it possible, for example, that organics may become the "conventional" food in the future?