Organic fresh produce sales up 4% in the first quarter of 2022

Total organic fresh produce sales for the first quarter of 2022 increased by 4% from the same period last year, according to the latest Organic Produce Performance report released exclusively by Organic Produce Network and Category Partners.

Sales of organic fresh produce topped $2.3 billion for the quarter, according to the report.

While organic fresh produce sales continued to grow in the first quarter, the report said overall volume declined because of elevated pricing. The decline in organic volume in the first quarter was about 1% compared with the same quarter of 2021.

Conventional produce showed the same pattern, with sales up 7% for the quarter (totaling $16.8 billion) and volume declining by 2.7%.

Higher average retail pricing in the first quarter is responsible for most of the sales gains of produce items, with conventional produce average pricing up more than 10% compared to the first quarter of last year. 

By contrast, organic fresh produce pricing rose just below 5%, according to the report.

Organic produce may have been able to absorb more of the increased costs related to the current inflationary environment, the report said.

“There are some strong takeaways from the Q1 data, most notably that overall volumes remain elevated from Q1 2019, before the COVID pandemic drove double-digit sales and volume gains at retail,” Tom Barnes, CEO of Category Partners, said in the release. “We believe the second quarter of this year will tell a similar story as we move further away from 2020 when the pandemic shuttered most foodservice, causing supermarket sales to soar.”

Packaged salads continued to dominate in total organic dollars, reaching nearly $400 million for the quarter, a gain of 1.5% year over year. The berry category (which includes strawberries, raspberries, blueberries and blackberries) grew 9.3% in sales from the first quarter of 2021, with strawberries posting gains in both dollars and volume of more than 16%.

Blueberries, on the other hand, were down 7% in dollars and 19% in volume from the previous year.

“While organic fresh produce volume declined for the first time in a long while, organic dollar sales continue to grow even after consecutive years of growth due to higher prices across the entire produce department,” Matt Seeley, CEO of Organic Produce Network, said in the release. “There remains room for growth of organic fresh produce as long as suppliers remain aware of not only the rising costs of organic produce, but also the opportunity presented by a significantly larger increase in conventional produce prices.”

The report said the southern region of the U.S. continued to show the most year-over-year improvement, with dollar growth rising 8%, and volume up 3.6%. The Northeast was the weakest region, with dollars declining 1.1% and volume down 7.7%.

The report used Nielsen retail scan data covering total food sales and outlets in the US over the months of January, February and March of this year. The full first-quarter 2022 Organic Produce Performance report is available on the Organic Produce Network website here.