Nearly every retail chain sells more organic fruits and vegetables than they used to, but do we really know who the category stars are nationally? We do now.
The Packer is releasing its inaugural Organic Produce Market Guide this summer, and in it we included retail scan data from IRI/FreshLook Marketing, which gives the produce industry a better idea of which fruits and vegetables really sell in the organic category and which have a long way to go.
With all the marketing that goes with apples and packaged salads, it's no surprise these two are top performers.
Apples represent 7.8% of all organic produce sales at retail, and more than 10% of overall apple sales are organic. Even bigger, more than 50% of salad mix sales are organic, as they represent just over 10% of all organic produce sales at retail.
But there are some surprises. Or at least, less expected category leaders. Carrots, for example, see nearly one-third of its category's retail sales in the organic variety, and sales grew by nearly 7% in 2016.
Sales of greens, when not in a salad mix, see 40% of the category made up of organic, although it only represents about 2% of the entire organic produce category.
Herbs are another that sees huge organic percentage of overall sales at 46%, accounting for 4% of the organic produce category. It owes much to the $12 per pound average retail price for the organic version.
But the big winner is kale. Just over 83% of retail sales of kale are organic, according to the scan data, although sales rose only 2% in 2016 from the previous year, compared to 21% growth from 2014 to 2015.
The underperformers, as far as organic percent of category, likely point to the difficulty of growing these fruits and vegetables organically.
Melons are a tough one to grow that way, and sales percentages reflect that. Cantaloupes see only 0.6% of their sales in organic, and organic watermelons are only 0.1% of overall category sales.
Cherries are another one that struggles to hit a high organic percentage at 1.1%. And organic corn is tough to find at retail and in consumers' carts. Only $1.2 million worth of organic sweet corn was scanned in 2015, making up 0.2% of category sales.
While there are numbers by different groups showing different shares, this ought to help retailers have a better idea of where their sales fall compared to overall organic sales trends.