The sustainability landscape is changing in the fresh produce aisle. Rather than just a concern about the environment, consumer decisions around sustainability issues like production style, packaging, buying local and more might be as much about identity and lifestyle to today’s consumers, according to one expert. This presents both challenges and opportunities for fresh produce retailers.
According to results from The Packer’s 2026 Fresh Trends survey, shoppers are noticeably shifting their sustainability priorities at the grocery store.
Just a few years ago, packaging dominated the conversation. In the 2023 survey, eco-conscious shoppers cared most about what wrapped their produce — placing biodegradable options and package-free displays at the top of their list while pushing organic growing practices to the back burner.
Today, that dynamic has completely flipped. The latest 2026 data shows shoppers are now tuning in to how their food is grown, making organic farming practices their top sustainability priority. Packaging concerns, once the main event, have dropped to the bottom of the consumer checklist.
This shift doesn’t surprise Jonna Parker, vice president of fresh foods at Circana.
“We are seeing an all-time high in the share of produce pounds that are coming from organics,” she says. “So, I’m not then surprised that there’s been a market change in consumers picking organic or more consumers saying organic is a major attribute for them.”
But she also says that the shift towards organics isn’t just about sustainability.
“It’s become a lifestyle choice,” she argues. “Organic is now something, especially for younger consumers, that becomes a big part of their identity and their lifestyle.”
Organic Produce: Sustainability, Lifestyle or Both?
Data from the Fresh Trends 2026 survey supports a strong generational divide over organics.
Respondents from the three youngest generations — Gen Z, millennials and Gen X — ranked organic production as much more important than did respondents in the baby boomer and traditionalist generations. Reports of organic purchasing also reflected this divide in perceived importance. Of all Gen Z survey respondents, 90% reported buying organic produce in the previous 12 months, for instance. Rates dropped off with each increasing age generation, with only 25% of traditionalist respondents reporting organic produce purchases.
Parker points out that organic produce really “hit the zeitgeist” right around when Gen Z was born, which makes the generational differences seen in the responses unsurprising.
“Their Gen X parents were opting for organic snacks, organic fruits and vegetables,” she says. “So, now you have people in their 20s for whom organic isn’t even just about sustainability — it’s about premiumization; ‘good for me, good for the planet.’”
It also helps that millennials and older Gen Zs make up the bulk of the current generation of parents today.
“There’s always been a strong correlation between demanding organics and especially people who had children,” Parker notes, and that is borne out by the Fresh Trends 2026 survey. Of respondents who had dependent children at home, 82% reported buying organic produce in the previous 12 months, compared with 63% of respondents without children at home.
Parents were also more willing to spend more for organic produce. Only 11% of survey respondents with dependent children in the household said they were unwilling to pay more for organic, leaving the other 89% saying they were willing to pay more. Some were willing to pay a lot more, as 9% of respondents with kids reported being willing to spend 50% or more for organic produce. This willingness to pay for organic as an identifiable demographic was only eclipsed by Gen Z respondents — 11% reported being willing to pay 50% or higher for organic.
Despite the demographic differences, buying organic fresh produce seems to be growing overall over the years. Out of all respondents to the Fresh Trends 2026 survey, over two-thirds (68.7%) reported buying organic fresh produce of some variety. That was up from the 65.7% who reported any organic purchases in the 2025 survey, 64.6% in the 2024 survey, and 56.0% in the 2023 survey.
Overall, organic-buying survey participants in 2026 reported that their motivations for buying organic were not primarily about sustainability. Food safety and the desire to avoid chemicals was the strongest motivation, with 62% of respondents citing it. Over half of organic-buying respondents (52%) cited nutrient content as a motivator. Sustainability came in third place on a list of four options, with only a third (33%) of respondents selecting it. This is down from past years’ survey results, when sustainability was a reported motivation for more organic buyers.
Take Note of How Consumers Feel About Local
Locally grown produce is another sustainability-adjacent issue Parker argues might be more about identity than environmentalism.
“Similar to what we talked about with organics, the concept of local produce and farmers markets are another major lifestyle trend that has really burgeoned during the young millennial and Gen Z lifetime,” she says.
The “romance and excitement” around those concepts can manifest in the grocery store with consumers looking for local, Parker adds. And look they did, according to the Fresh Trends 2026 survey.
A quarter of respondents reported buying more locally grown produce in the prior 12 months compared with the same time the year before. Additionally, 91% said locally grown produce was at least somewhat important to them. This is up considerably from recent past Fresh Trends reports that show consumers felt less strongly about local produce in comparable questions.
Consumer feelings are especially important right now, according to Parker.
“‘Local’ gives you that feel-good feeling. It’s been a stressful decade, and those feel-good moments really are important to people in a variety of ways,” she says.
One of those ways is as a reaction to concerns over big business and big government that consumers can’t, or feel like they can’t, control or impact.
But Parker concedes that sourcing and consistently stocking local produce can be hard for traditional chain grocery stores where, according to Circana data, about 42% of the fresh food in the country is purchased. But there’s a different opportunity such retailers can tap to bring customers a local produce story: bringing in local produce workers as experts.
“They want to feel good about who they’re helping and how they’re helping,” she says of consumers looking for local produce. “We talk so much in this industry about the produce clerk. How do we have them be a recommender and a local expert on produce?”
Luckily, consumers’ interest in local produce aligns well with retailers’ sustainability and business interests.
According to The Packer’s 2026 Sustainability Insights survey of produce retailers, 70% of respondents reported increasing their local and regional sourcing for fresh produce. Of those respondents, 52% reported seeing higher costs but improved supply reliability, and another 26% reported seeing both lower costs and improved supply reliability.
Additionally, 61% of all retail respondents called “local sourcing” the sustainability initiative that has delivered the strongest financial return for their operation.
They also recognize the impact on consumers. When asked which sustainability initiatives consumers respond most positively to, 85% of retail respondents selected “local sourcing.”
Still, Parker emphasizes the produce industry “really [has] to understand who wants what” when it comes to local produce and other sustainability details.
Standout demographics for local produce in the Fresh Trends 2026 survey followed the patterns seen in organics: Parents and younger generations were the most involved with local produce. Close to half (44%) of respondents who had dependent children at home said buying locally grown fresh produce was extremely or very important to them, while almost a third (30%) reported buying more local produce in the prior 12 months compared with the same time the year before.
Similarly, perceptions of the importance of local produce and reports of buying more of it recently favored the younger generations. For example, 39% of Gen Z respondents reported buying local as either extremely or very important to them, and 28% reported buying more local produce. This compares to baby boomer respondents at 28% and 20%, respectively.
“This is all a moment where today’s consumer has grown up differently in a different produce world than the prior consumers,” Parker says.
Packaging Perspectives Are Diverging
Packaging is another area where generational shifts among consumers is coming into play, according to Parker. She points to the rise in the convenience and normalization of e-commerce and delivery for groceries in recent years.
“It’s changed what packaging means to someone,” she adds. “For the majority of Americans, if a package helps a product arrive more safely to their counter and adds to the convenience of an item, packaging isn’t necessarily the worst thing.”
This is certainly a possible interpretation of the packaging-focused responses to the Fresh Trends 2026 survey.
On the one hand, respondents downranked packaging details as important to sustainability considerations. But on the other hand, almost half reported packaging plays a role in their fresh produce buying decisions: sometimes (30%), usually (16%) and always (8%). Only 19% of respondents said they never consider packaging, and an additional 28% reported that they rarely consider packaging in their produce purchasing decisions. This level of consumer attention to packaging was higher than in comparable questions in past surveys.
The most comparable question from the 2025 and 2024 Fresh Trends surveys asked if respondents “consciously avoid buying produce in plastic packaging because of environmental/ sustainability reasons.” In 2025, over half (55%) said they did not; in 2024, 56% said they did not.
Parker explains that consumers’ concern over packaging and sustainability is less about the specific packaging material and more contextual. Instead of asking, “What is the package made of?” or “Is this too much packaging?” she recommends the produce industry think about the needs of the consumer around specific produce items instead.
“A packaging innovation that we’re seeing in produce might allow a product to be more snackable or for [the customer] to have something that’s maybe veg, fiber and protein all in the same package,” she says. “Then, all of a sudden, the package becomes not the package; it becomes a solution.
“I bring that up because I think so often in produce we talk in length about ‘people don’t want packaging,’” Parker continues. “People want packaging in the right places, in the right products, in the right ways.”
Additional Sustainability Concerns: Waste, Water and GMOs
Reducing food waste is becoming a major force behind consumer purchases, aligning closely with retail priorities.
Fresh Trends 2026 finds that while convenience remains the primary driver for value-added produce, the percentage of shoppers buying pre-cut or prepared items specifically to curb waste doubled from 7% in 2023 to 14% in 2026. Retailers share this focus, ranking waste reduction as the single most impactful sustainability trend on the horizon.
At the same time, overall demand for value-added options continues to surge. One-fifth of consumers bought more value-added produce over the past year, and 75% say they plan to buy even more in the future—up from 62% in 2025.
This interest in waste reduction aligns well with retailer interests. In the Sustainability Insights 2026 survey, retail respondents ranked waste reduction as the most impactful sustainability-related trend in the coming years, followed by “hyperlocal and indoor farming.”
Other sustainability-related topics that Fresh Trends 2026 survey respondents weighed in on included fair trade certifications, water conservation and the use of gene edited or genetically modified organisms. For fair trade and water conservation, reported consumer interest or perception of importance for these issues increased compared with past years.
For instance, 29% of respondents to the Fresh Trends 2025 survey said fair trade certifications did not factor into their produce purchasing decisions. In the 2026 survey, that had dropped to 21% of respondents. Similarly, water conservation rose in rank to the second most important sustainability practice to respondents in 2026. It had been solidly third place in the importance ranking in the 2023 to 2025 Fresh Trends surveys.
This growing perception of the importance of water conservation among consumers aligns well with producers’ perspectives and business interests.
According to the Sustainability Insights 2026 survey, water quality and efficiency management practices (separate from precision irrigation) were the third most reported sustainability practices used by produce growers, packers and shippers. Respondents also reported these practices as having the best return on investment for their operations. Similarly, when considering specific sustainability technologies on their operations, respondents put “smart irrigation and water management systems” at the top of the list for technologies they expect to have the greatest economic impact.
In the Fresh Trends 2026 survey, consumers were asked about “new produce items with increased nutrition and shelf life available in grocery stores that are made with bioengineering (genetically modified).” The examples of the Empress Purple Tomato, Pinkglow pineapple and Arctic apple were offered to respondents.
When asked if they had tried such produce items, 18% of respondents said yes. Parent respondents, Gen Z and millennial consumers, and male respondents reported higher levels of engagement with GMO produce items than did nonparent, older generation or female respondents, respectively.
Slightly more than a third (38%) of respondents reported they were at least somewhat likely to try such produce items in the near future. Again, parent respondents, Gen Z and millennial consumers, and male respondents reported greater likelihood of trying GMO produce in the future compared with their respective counterparts.
Retail’s Sustainability Path Needs to Be Differentiated
While these shifts in consumers’ sustainability interests might present difficulties, Parker sees the situation as a huge opportunity for the fresh produce industry as well.
“There is a sustainability play in produce, but it is specific to a group of consumers,” she says. “But I think we’ve got to really start with the consumer first in these decisions.”
This will involve a lot of social listening and market differentiation to meet the needs of different consumer groups, she adds. Pointing to the growth of niche retailers, websites catering to different sustainability or production claims, and the ease of e-commerce for consumers today, she emphasizes that the produce industry can’t take a one-size-fits-all approach to sustainability anymore.
“There’s a lot of demands on people’s attention spans, wallets and stomachs, and people don’t want average anymore,” Parker says. “What [the Fresh Trends survey] and the trends are showing is that, when you make produce differentiated, there’s a healthy audience of people who don’t want the same old. They want sustainability choices and organic choices and personal choices.”
