More than 70 per cent of British people have bought organic products in the last year and sales of organic food have rocketed to£1.5 billion, up by 70 per cent since 2002.
A growing awareness of food miles has shifted UK consumers’ towards locally sourced organic produce, which decreased the proportion of imported organic food into the UK to just 30 per cent compared with 70 per cent in 2002.
This dramatic shift has created serious supply problems for the organic industry - and Mintel reports there is not enough British-grown organic food to satisfy demand.
Mintel senior market analyst David Bird said: "The lengthy conversion process from regular to organic farming takes several years to complete. Because of this many producers have not been able to react quickly to satisfy the growing demand for home grown organic food. And this has undoubtedly had a huge impact on the growth of the market."
However, Mintel believes that as new producers slowly enter the market and more land becomes available for organic growing, the market will rocket by about 54 per cent over the five years to 2012 – with the market set to shoot past£2 billion by 2011.
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