Today, the German Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (BMEL) presented its 'Eco-Barometer 2022 – Survey on the consumption of organic food'. According to the results, 89 percent of consumers said they would buy organic food in the future, despite inflation and a general reluctance to buy in the food market.
The Eco-Barometer has been commissioned regularly by the BMEL since 2002 and is an integral part of the Federal Organic Farming Program. For this representative survey, INFO GmbH Markt- und Meinungsforschung evaluated a total of 1,014 interviews between December 2022 and January 2023.
These are the most important details of the Eco-Barometer 2022:
- 89 percent of consumers said they would continue to buy organic food in the future, despite inflation and a general reluctance to buy in the food market.
- 36 percent of respondents said they bought organic food either frequently (33 percent) or exclusively (3 percent), and 49 percent did so occasionally.
- Demand for organic food is greatest for products such as eggs, vegetables, and fruits, followed by potatoes, dairy products, and meat or sausage products.
- Nine out of ten respondents said they bought organic food in the supermarket.
- Consumers justified their purchase of organic food with animal welfare (54 percent) and healthy groceries (44 percent). Fair conditions in production and trade as well as climate protection were important for a quarter of respondents, and taste was decisive for about one fifth of consumers.
Cem Özdemir, German Federal Minister of Food and Agriculture, commented: "People want more organic food - that's good news for the environment, the climate, species conservation and our farms. And it strengthens us on our path to make agriculture and food production fit for the future. Particularly in times of crisis, we become even more aware of how valuable and important it is to farm sustainably. This is precisely what our target of 30 percent organic by 2030 is paying for. For farms, organic can be an important opportunity for the future. It is important to me that organic pays off for the farms as well as for the customers, so that the good choice becomes the easy choice. That's what we're working on."
Source: BMEL
More information and the Eco Barometer 2022