Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
neighbour Austria per capita consumption was 104 EUR in 2009 with 6% organic share of
food market. However, Austria is one of the leading countries in the world with regards to
per capita consumption as well as share of the total food market. Higher per capita
consumption and food expenditure share is found only in Denmark with 139 EUR and 7.2%
respectively. If the data about the organic market are compared with the other new EU
member states, Slovenia ranks the highest both in per capita consumption and share of the
organic food in the total food market. Consumers in Estonia are the nearest by both
indicators, since they spent 8.8 EUR on organic food which represents 1% of their total food
spending. In Czech Republic per capita consumption was 7 EUR with 0.7% expenditure
share, in Hungary 3 EUR and 0,3% respectively., whereas in Poland consumers spent on
average 1.3 EUR on organic food annually, which is 0,1% of food budget. (Kilher et al.,
2011).
The organic market in Slovenia has been growing at an annual rate between 10-15% the
period between 2005 and 2009. The largest growth was in the category of fresh vegetables
and fruits. The study revealed that the majority of the organic food and beverages sales are
done through retail shop of different categories. It is estimated that more than 84% of
Slovenian organic turnover is covered by these intermediaries. Direct selling on farm has
11% share while direct selling on the specialised farmers markets amounts to almost 5%.
When the origin of organic products was estimated the study revealed that less than 5% of
sales in retail channel is from Slovenia and respectively direct selling on farms or farmers
markets is comprised of only domestic produce. The imports are mainly from the EU
countries (Austria and Germany).
Sales channel
Market
value
(in mio
EUR)
Channels share
(in %)
Share of
domestic
(in %)
Retail shops (conventional, discount,
specialised)
29.0
84.1
< 5
On-farm
3.8
11.0
100
Organic farmers' markets
1.7
4.9
100
Total 34.5 100
Table 2. The structure of Slovenian organic food market by the sales channel, 2009. Source
(Slabe et al., 2010)
Around 80% of the organic products of the domestic origin (both fresh and processed) was
sold directly by the farmers. Approximately 2/3 of that value was created through the on-
farm sales while the rest was realised through the organic farmers' markets. In the
marketing season 2009-10, there were 13 organic farmers' markets in different cities of
Slovenia operating once a week. The largest organic market was in Ljubljana with 26
vendors of which 2 were artisanal organic processors and the rest were farmers with fresh
products. The organic farmers markets in other towns are somewhat smaller usually with
between five to ten vendors. The organic market coordinators and the vending farmers
perceived a growing interest of consumers in the last three to five years for the organic food.
Also the interviews in the prevailing marketing channel for organic food and beverages in
Slovenia, namely the retail shops, indicated a high level of consumers' demand for domestic
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