Local farmers’ markets and organic food producers have seen a surge in sales over the last two years.
FRESHFARM Markets, a nonprofit organization with six markets in Washington and Maryland, saw an average of 60 percent growth in sales over the last year, said Bernadine French, co-director and founder. The organization, which sells a wide variety of products that are farmed within a 150-mile radius of Washington, has not embarked on an advertising campaign and added only one or two farmers each of the markets this year. Despite this, and the current drought, sales are up. French said the demand is due to a greater awareness of the many advantages of local produce from health benefits to support of the local economy. Rockville-based My Organic Market, which has five stores in the metro area, also had strong sales growth in its existing stores, according to Vice President of Grocery Lisa de Lima, although exact figures couldn’t be released. The introduction of two new stores did not undermine sales in the established locations. Nationwide, sales of organic foods jumped by 20.5 percent from 2005 to 2006, according to a new report set to be released in August from the Organic Trade Association. That was a sharp increase over the 16.2 percent growth seen from 2004 to 2005. The growth can beattributed to the increased availability of products in more venues and increasing customer exposure to organic products, said Barbara Haumann, press secretary for the OTA, based in Greenfield, Mass.
Haumann predicts that the organic foods market will continue to see steady growth in the future, but the rate of increased growth may start to decline.
