The organic food and drink market in Sweden grew 9.3% in 2017 helping sales reach SEK 28 billion (€2.8 billion), according to new data released by Ekoweb.
Organic’s share of total food sales was 9.1%, an increase of 0.4 percentage points (8.7%, 2016).
Systembolaget, Sweden’s government operated alcohol retailer, is shown to be the second largest player in organic food and drink sales, thanks to a concerted drive to increase sales of organic drinks. Sales increased to SEK 5.2 billion (€520 million) in 2017 (SEK 4.5 billion, 2016). Of these sales 14.2% were made online in 2017 and 12.6% of these online sales were for organic drinks.
Foodservice continued to see good growth in organic food sales. Sales increased by 15% during the year, both in the private catering market and in the public sector.
In the retail sector organic food sales growth slowed in 2017, compared to the double-digit growth of recent years. The largest player, ICA, increased organic sales by 3%, Axfood by 5% and Coop 3%. The smaller players Lidl, Mathem and Net have a growth rate of between 10-30%.
Prices for organic food have been relatively stable during the year. One factor affecting retail price is the continued growth of the retailers’ private-label products giving larger volumes of trade and naturally push down prices. When converting from branded to ‘own-brand’ product, prices are typically cut by about 10% on average. All the major retail chains in Sweden report that they have increased their market share with private-label in 2017.
A strongly growing trend is online food sales which now have a 2.4% of the total food trade, according to the trade union Svensk Digital Handel. Online, the proportion of organic sales is much higher than in ‘bricks & mortar’ retail and many chains report online organic sales are double their non-organic online food sales. In 2017, online organic sales were valued at SEK 1.2 billion (€120 million). This means that 4.4% of all organic food sold today in Sweden is now sold online.
Swedish organic food exports increased by 20% in the value to just over SEK 1 billion (€100 million) in 2017, accounting for just over 2% of total food exports from Sweden, according to KRAV.