Meeting Scotland's organic targets comes naturally

[S.Annadana]

Meeting Scotland's organic targets comes naturally

GalleryORGANIC farming in Scotland is now well established and is strongly supported by the Scottish Executive.

In February 2007, the Scottish Executive published its third Organic Annual Report on progress towards its action plan for organic farming, launched three years earlier.

The action plan set out the Executive's vision for a prosperous organic faADVERTISEMENTrming and food sector with the aim of ensuring that local demand for organic produce can be met, as far as possible, by Scottish producers.

The aim at the time was to double the area of good quality land in Scotland in organic conversion or production, from 15 per cent to 30 per cent by 2007 – a challenge that was met. By 2007, Scottish farmers were able to meet some 70 per cent of the market for indigenous organic produce and, at the same time, many Scottish producers managed to develop their sales into the UK generally and into broader, international markets.

Asda spokesman Jeff Maxton reckons there is every indication that the consumer continues to be more than willing to pay a premium for organic products. "There has been a huge increase in sales of organic produce. It is one of our fastest-growing areas," he says.

In all, Asda now has more than 900 organic lines and claims to be the retailer with the strongest growth in organic sales, up 23 per cent year on year, while the retail market in general is averaging around 17 per cent year-on-year growth for organic produce sales. Maxton, though, points out that growth in organic sales does not necessarily equate to a bigger share of the market for all retailers.

"Of the big four retailers, only ourselves and Tesco grew market share in organics between 2007 and 2008. Tesco grew 0.6 per cent, we grew 1 per cent," he says, citing figures that came from the TNS WorldPanel 2008 survey.

The supermarket is in the process of relaunching its Asda organic brand range and it has formed a steering committee, which comprises of key organic suppliers and stakeholders, with the aim of continuing to develop and publicise its strategy on organic products.