Looking at the evolution of consumer demand and growing organic supply, industry veteran Steve Lutz will deliver a keynote address Feb. 1 at the Global Organic Produce Expo in Hollywood, Fla.
Lutz, regional vice president of U.S. and Canada West at the Produce Marketing Association since May, has more than 35 years of produce industry experience. Before coming to PMA, Lutz was senior strategist and vice president of marketing for Wenatchee, Wash.-based Columbia Marketing International.
Lutz also co-founded the consumer market research firm The Perishables Group and was executive vice president after the firm was acquired by Nielsen. Lutz also had been president and CEO of the Washington Apple Commission.
Lutz said his presentation at GOPEX will consider how sales of organic products have evolved over the past decade or so.
“Obviously, that evolution of supplies is having an impact on pricing, but (the presentation) will also get into how is that impacting consumer purchase rates, products that are bought and demographics,” he said.
“It’s one thing to say, well, gosh, we wish consumers would eat more, we wish consumers would buy more,” Lutz said. “But the fact is, they can’t buy what we don’t grow — or put another way, they can only buy it if we grow it.”
Lutz said his talk also will consider trends in retail distribution and retail assortment that suggest future trends in organic demand.
Registration and the full conference and expo agenda for the Jan. 31 to Feb. 2 Global Organic Produce Expo is at https://www.globalorganicexpo.com/.
