45 percent of U.S. residents buy organic foods at least once a month, according to research recently released by Consumer Reports.
Additionally, the USDA reports $35 billion was spent on organic food in 2013. However, that is still only 5 percent of the total “at home food sales” for that year. In another report, TechSci research forecasts annual sales increases of 14 percent through 2018 for organic foods. This is causing a lot of folks to believe organic foods are on the verge of becoming mainstream.
Big retailers such as Wal-Mart and Target and preparing to cash in on the trend. Both have recently announced they will be adding over 100 organic and “natural” products.
In a press release Wal-Mart stated 91 percent of their customers would choose organic over conventional if the different in price wasn’t too much. The retailer later this year plans launch an organic private label, Wild Oats, that will save shippers 25 percent compared to other organic products.
Organic Web Domain
Next consumers will be seeing websites with a new domain name “organic” instead of com or net. It will be one of more than 175 new generic top-level domains recently introduced by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, Marina del Ray, CA. Until 2013 there were only 22 domains, with the best known including com, net, org and edu.
Afilia Limited, an Irish registry services company with its subsidiary Afilias USA Inc. based near Philadelphia, is handling the new organic domain. Only certified organic producers and marketers and organic trade associations will be allowed to use the domain.