Italy’s Organic Food Sales More than Doubled in the Past Decade

The grow­ing demand for organic food prod­ucts is fuel­ing Italian organic agri­cul­tural pro­duc­tion.

In the last 10 years, organic food sales in Italy have grown by 133 per­cent. Similarly, exports of Italian organic prod­ucts have risen by 181 per­cent in value in the same period.

Eighty-one per­cent of these exports are food, with the remain­ing por­tion com­pris­ing cos­met­ics and other agri­cul­tural-related health prod­ucts.

According to the lat­est data pub­lished by Nomisma, a con­sul­tancy, the export value of organic agri­cul­tural prod­ucts rose from €1.2 bil­lion in 2012 to an expected €3.4 bil­lion in 2022. The value of organic food exports in 2022 will exceed €2.7 bil­lion, a 16 per­cent year-on-year increase.

Today, organic exports rep­re­sent 6 per­cent of the over­all value of Italian agri­food exports. According to Nomisma, Italy is the sec­ond largest organic food exporter behind the United States, whose exports exceeded €2.98 bil­lion in 2021.

Wine is by far the most appre­ci­ated organic food prod­uct sold by Italian com­pa­nies on the inter­na­tional mar­ket, rep­re­sent­ing 19 per­cent of all organic export sales. By com­par­i­son, total wine sales account for 13 per­cent of Italian agri­cul­tural exports by value.

Nomisma esti­mated that Italian organic food exports to grow in the next three years, mainly in Germany (+53 per­cent), north­ern European coun­tries (+32 per­cent) and the United States (+25 per­cent).

In inter­na­tional and national mar­kets, inter­est in organic extra vir­gin olive oil is also grow­ing. In a recent report, the Institute of Services for the Agricultural and Food Market (Ismea) said organic extra vir­gin olive oil pro­duc­tion reached 46,000 tons in 2019, val­ued at approx­i­mately €200 mil­lion.

Ismea said organic extra vir­gin olive oil sales had been fueled by ris­ing pub­lic demand and the higher prices pro­duc­ers can charge for organic oils, tra­di­tion­ally between €0.20 and €0.40 more.

Outside of Italy, inter­est in organic extra vir­gin olive oil has also grown recently. Organic olive oils won about one in three awards at the 2022 NYIOOC World Olive Oil Competition, the world’s largest olive oil qual­ity con­test.

In its report, Nomisma said organic food con­sump­tion is dri­ven mainly by house­hold con­sump­tion – as opposed to restau­rant or hos­pi­tal­ity con­sump­tion – grow­ing 4 per­cent between 2020 and 2021 to reach almost €3.9 bil­lion.

In 2021, 89 per­cent of Italian fam­i­lies bought at least one organic prod­uct. In 2012, about 50 per­cent of fam­i­lies did the same. Today, 54 per­cent of Italian fam­i­lies con­sume organic food prod­ucts at least once per week.

Quality and health ben­e­fits are the most rel­e­vant dri­vers of organic food pur­chases. Thirty-nine per­cent of con­sumers inter­viewed by Nomisma also cited sus­tain­abil­ity and respect for bio­di­ver­sity as influ­enc­ing their deci­sions. Twenty-eight per­cent of con­sumers ask for organic food con­tain­ers to be 100 per­cent recy­clable.

According to Nomisma, large retail­ers make up 56 per­cent of all organic food sales to fam­i­lies and restau­rants, with a total value of €2.2 bil­lion in 2021.

Still, the report high­lights an 8‑percent growth between 2020 and 2021 for sales by spe­cial­ized organic food retail­ers, which now account for 26 per­cent of the mar­ket. Five per­cent growth also is expected for other organic food sales chan­nels, such as phar­ma­cies, fairs and local mar­kets.

• Nomisma
• Sana
• Ismea